


Call Down the Shade

by AcrylicMist



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Attempted Murder, Boys In Love, Canon-Typical Violence, Grief/Mourning, Homophobia, Hospitals, M/M, Magic, Other, Sexual Content, Small Towns, Southern Gothic, Weird Plot Shit, classpecting madness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-01-12 12:06:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 50,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18446207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcrylicMist/pseuds/AcrylicMist
Summary: After a lifetime spent being bounced around new schools, Karkat can't help but notice there's something strange going on in this sleepy southern town.Specifically, something that hovers around the supernatural.And the boy with the bruise isn't making this mystery any easier on him.





	1. And it is so Strange

**Author's Note:**

> IT'S 413 YOU HOMESTUCK MOTHERFUCKERS SO HERE'S A BRAND NEW SOUTHERN GOTHIC HOMESTUCK DAVEKAT FIC!
> 
> I noticed that there was a severe lack of Southern Gothic Homestuck content so of course I had to rectify that issue. This is me dipping into my fav genre with my fav characters.
> 
> Have fun! It's 413! Let's read some new fics!

Chapter one: And It Is So Strange 

**Day 145.**

Karkat was glaring out of the window of the school bus the first time he saw him.

Pale hair. Suntanned skin that looked recently burnt. A red and white shirt with a plain black backpack. Karkat’s eyes would have moved off of the guy, it was only his first day here, he didn’t know any of these people, but the shiner around the boy’s eye drew his gaze like a magnet. 

The boy climbed onto the bus, accompanied by someone else that must have been his brother. They had the same sandy blonde hair. Up close the bruise was ugly. It contrasted greatly against the smile on the guy’s face as he greeted a blue-eyed boy with buck teeth and a girl with wild black hair. 

Karkat instantly envied their easy friendship. He missed Terezi so much that it hurt. The lack of all the familiar things that he missed was like a hole in his heart that made his blood pump slow and sluggish. First days of school sucked ass. They always sucked ass. 

Karkat turned back to the window, watching as the bus pulled away from the cracked sidewalk that dissolved into unpaved dusty dirt roads, their banks lined with red clay and white sand baked hard in the sunlight. The pollen was so thick in the air that Karkat could taste it on his tongue as the bus wound its way through river bottoms choked with moss-clad cypress and magnolias in full bloom. 

This was a small town. It didn’t take long for the bus to reach the school, which didn’t look like a school building from the outside. Karkat could see cracked windows from here alongside faded red paint that read ‘home of the egrets’ in red letters. To him the building reeked of depression but the other students didn’t seem to be bothered by the sad sight as they filed off of the bus.

The blue-eyed boy was laughing again. The sound rang unpleasantly in Karkat’s ears as he stood and shouldered his backpack.

This was going to be a long day.  
…

 

Karkat didn’t see the boy with the bruise again until lunch, which was the period that always sucked the most. He didn’t recognize any of these faces and everyone kept staring at him with eyes that spoke of an unwillingness to engage with an outsider. 

It was unbearably hot even inside the cafeteria. The air conditioner was cranking out overhead at full blast but none of the coolness reached the tables below. Karkat felt like he was melting as he unzipped his jacket. He sought out an empty table to sit at and eat his lunch as fast as he could, but in a school this small there were no unoccupied tables. Which left Karkat with zero options. He’d have to eat outside and battle the wasps for his food, which was… actually, he didn’t know what the fuck his meal was supposed to resemble. Unidentified meat, gray paste, and a square roll of bread sat on his tray. It was like no school lunch he’d seen before, but again, he wasn’t going to argue. 

A voice startled Karkat out of his inner brooding. 

“Hey, you’re the new kid everyone’s talking about, aren’t you?”

Karkat turned around to see a girl with green eyes and dark skin. 

“I’m Jade,” she said, extending her hand, only to slowly take it back when Karkat, his hands full of mystery meat, made no move to shake hands. “You know,” she said, “You can always sit with us. We don’t bite.” She smiled at him, showing off slightly crooked teeth. 

It was the best invitation Karkat was going to get. “Okay,” he said, giving in to the only kindness anyone had shown him so far. 

He sat down at the table. There were a few unfamiliar faces, but he recognized the blue-eyed boy and the pair of brothers from his bus. 

“Sup,” the blue eyed boy said. “I’m John.”

“Jade,” Jade said again, pointing at herself. 

“Dirk,” came the soft bark of a voice from who Karkat presumed was the older brother. 

“Jane here,” the girl said, smiling widely at him. 

“I’m Rose,” came the next reply as Karkat tried his best to match names to the faces around him. 

“Roxy,” the older girl said, grinning. 

That left only one person.

The boy with the bruise didn’t smile at him. His eyes were fixed on the table. “I’m Dave,” he said. His face was tilted like he was trying to hide the mark across his eye. This close the mark was a nasty thing. The whites of Dave’s left eye were red with ruptured blood vessels. There was a small cut near his eyebrow. It made Karkat wonder how it had happened. 

Dave must have caught him staring because he met Karkat’s eyes with a small shrug. The sunlight was streaming in through the cafeteria windows and turned Dave’s eyes blood red. The effect was strange. Karkat had never seen eyes like that before. He wanted to stare at them longer but didn’t want to seem rude so he respectfully looked away.

“I’m Karkat,” he said, introducing himself. 

John was looking back and forth between Dave and Karkat with a faint look of surprise that Karkat didn’t understand. Dave looked very interested. Karkat could feel him staring. 

“Karkat?” Rose, it was Rose wasn’t it, or was this one Roxy, said. Her hair was tucked up behind her ears by a purple headband, the tips dyed a matching shade. “That’s an uncommon name.”

“I’m an uncommon guy,” Karkat answered flatly with his usual response. He waited for the rundown, the questioning spiel of who are you, why are you here, where did you come from, but all they did was eat and joke until the bell rang. 

Karkat was grateful for the break in the questions as he headed back to class. It was a welcome break from the madness.

The rest of the school day passed quickly. He didn’t see Dave again until he got back on the bus to go home. 

Dave, Dirk, John, and Jade sat at the back. Karkat nearly sat down at the front until John saw him and waved him over. “Karkat!” He called out. “Come sit with us again!”

Karkat sighed, squared his shoulders, and made his way to the back of the bus. 

All in all, his first day hadn’t gone so bad. 

 

**Day 139.**

This time Dave was limping. It was just a slight limp, but it was enough that Karkat wondered why Dirk didn’t try to help his brother board the bus. At least the bruise on his eye had disappeared. 

Karkat sat at the back of the bus by his own free will this time. He’d acclimated to John and the small but tight knit friend group he’d been adopted into so generously. It was a far better deal than he’d found at other schools. 

It was Karkat’s second week of school and the August day was sweltering. He’d never lived in the South before and the temperature was hot as hell. Taking the bus to school felt like riding in a toaster. He was being baked alive. 

The only reprieve was the shade beneath the mossy oaks out behind the school. The grassy area was where Karkat had taken to hanging out after lunch and after school. It wasn’t like there was a better place to hang in a town so small and so isolated it had its own zip code. 

John threw an acorn at Roxy, who shrieked and tossed a pinecone back at him. Karkat wandered off along the overgrown fence line, following where the ground dipped low and became spotted with soggy moisture. Mosquitoes hovered above the still puddles, pollen a centimeter thick across the water’s surface. He’d never seen nature like this before. 

It wasn’t that he was avoiding John and the others. Sometimes they were just too much to handle. That was the downside of being amoeba’d into such a friend group—they already had a thousand memories together and a hundred inside jokes and asides that sometimes, even when making the most of it and working to feel included, Karkat felt like a stranger. 

Then he saw Dave again. The other boy was standing in the middle of the greasy-looking water, something thin and rope-like between his fingers. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Karkat asked curiously. He’d never had put his feet into a puddle like that. Just the thought made his toes curl, and worse, Dave was wearing white shoes. Karkat could see the tops of them at Dave’s ankles where the hem of his jeans hung in the muck.

Dave turned his shoulder, surprised. His red eyes were gleaming in the dappled sunlight. “You found me?” It was more of a question than a statement. 

“Were you trying to hide?” Karkat asked. '

“No,” Dave said, shrugging. He gave Karkat an odd look, his face unreadable. He offered Karkat the thing in his hands. “Look, I caught a snake.”

Karkat quickly did a double-take at the rope Dave was holding and saw scales. He shuddered and backed away. He didn’t like snakes. He didn’t like how they moved or how their heads could dart around. 

“Are you afraid?” Dave asked him, still half-turned, his body hidden as he held out the thin black snake. “It won’t bite. It’s just a rat snake. Harmless.”

“You swear?” Karkat asked, trusting some country boy like Dave to at least know what snakes to pick up and which would rot his hands off if he tried. Karkat had never seen a rattlesnake before, but he’d heard enough about them from his dad to know to stay away. 

“Scout’s honor,” Dave replied with a wink. “Wanna see it?”

Karkat crept closer. He didn’t touch the slimy water so Dave stayed a few feet away. There were a pair of dark sunglasses tucked into the neck of Dave’s shirt. Karkat couldn’t remember them being there a moment ago. 

Dave held out the snake, which was contently winding itself along his fingers. It didn’t look so dangerous when Dave had it, like a tame shoelace. 

“Are you sure that’s not a rattlesnake?” Karkat asked, concerned. 

Dave let out a laugh that quickly died away. The wind rustled through the leaf litter around them. “Yeah,” He gave Karkat another look. “I can tell you’re not from around here.” His accent was deeper than most of the other people eat the school, the vowels slightly warped, the syllables mashed together or missing like what was characteristic for the Deep South. Karkat thought the effect was nice. It made Dave’s voice into music. 

“I’m not,” Karkat answered, still staring at the small snake Dave held so tenderly. Karkat didn’t know Dave that well. He hung out with John and the rest of them but always stayed separate. Even Dirk sometimes ignored him. 

Dave didn’t ask where he was from. Instead he bend down and set the snake on the opposite bank from where Karkat was standing. It took a second to unwind the serpent from his hand, and then the snake shot off into the thick underbrush. In the distance Karkat could hear the nasal ringing of the lunch bell from the school.

“We should go,” Karkat said as the other students began to file into the building. 

Dave made no move to leave the puddle he was ankle-deep in and then Karkat remembered than Dave had been limping this morning. 

“Do you need help?” Karkat asked, concerned that Dave was still injured and willing to help. 

Dave looked at him again. It was strange. The other boy just kept staring at him with those ruby-red eyes that glittered in the sunlight, nearly glowing. He blinked.

“Yes,” Dave said slowly, and he stepped out of the water. “But not like this.” His limp had vanished. Dave shook a leaf out of his sandy hair. “Let’s go.”

It wasn’t until later that Karkat realized that there was not a single speck of mud on Dave’s faded white shoes. Even his dark jeans were untouched. 

 

**Day 135.**

It was Friday and the football team was hyping up for tonight’s game. They ran around the hallways in their jerseys, hollering war chants and throwing footballs around like cavemen. Even the teachers were into it. Karkat sought refuge in the empty art room, which was the only part of the building with reliable air conditioning. 

John was inside, laughing with Jade and Rose. The three of them were alone when Karkat joined them.

“Hey, Karkat,” John greeted him warmly. “How was your morning?”

“Fine,” Karkat answered, huffing in irritation. “These fucking football players are getting on my fucking nerves.”

“Mine as well,” Rose said, dipping her chin at him. “They’re always like this on game days, sadly.”

“We do our best to hide and stay here,” Jade chipped in, motioning to the empty art room. “Mrs. Paint lets us hang out in here all the time.”

“Great,” Karkat said, signing as he sat down heavily beside John. “Just what I needed—a break in the madness.”

John offered him a small smile. “You seem to be settling in well,” he said, his feet swinging freely from where he sat on top of the table. “How are you liking the county?”

“It’s small,” Karkat said, shrugging, his hands in his pockets. “Smaller than I’m used to.”

“I bet it is,” Rose said, her gaze wistful. “We’re a small place even by southern standards. It’s nice though. Here, everyone knows each other.”

“I never thought that’d be a good thing,” Karkat admitted. “I like my privacy.”

Rose winked at him. 

“So,” John drawled, eyeing him curiously. “I have a question to ask.”

“What is it?” Karkat asked with dread. Was this where it began? Would he never be free of these endless inquiries into his past?

John surprised him by asking nothing of the sort. The sudden change in subject made Karkat’s head spin. “I see you and Dave talking sometimes.”

Jade froze, her eyes widening. Rose was staring Very Hard at the exact center of his skull as if she could see inside to the contents of his thoughts written before her piercing gaze. Jade just looked sad. 

“That’s not a question,” Karkat pointed out. 

“It was,” John said with a small smile. “What do you two talk about?”

“Nothing really,” Karkat said, fumbling his words. “Dirk’s his brother, right?”

“Right,” John nodded. “We’re all cousins somewhere up the family tree. We’ve always known each other.”

“Believe it or not, I could have guessed that,” Karkat said, trying to joke, to lighten the suddenly, inexplicably sodden mood. Jade looked like she was about to start crying. Her green eyes were watery and she kept sniffling. 

“Because we’re family, and best friends,” John told him, serious. “It’s our job to watch out for him, you hear?”

Was that a threat? Karkat didn’t think so, not from John, not like this, but he couldn’t piece together the context. It felt like he was missing something. 

“If you’re going to be friends with Dave, you’ve got to watch out for him too,” John finished. “This town doesn’t understand that. They never will either. That’s why it’s up to us.”

“What’s up to us?” Karkat asked, feeling a hint of fear deep in his chest. 

“That’s enough, John,” Rose snapped, blinking fiercely. “Say nothing more.”

John shrugged, his expression bleak. “I was done anyway,” he said. 

The bell rang just then, freeing Karkat from the obligation of keeping all of the questions that he didn’t ask swallowed down into that place in his chest where he felt a little lonely knot forming the longer he stayed at this school. The area was like a nail through a wooden board. People helped, but even once the nail was removed, he still had to deal with the hole it left behind. 

 

**Day 131**

Dave wasn’t at school a lot. Most mornings Dirk would climb onto the bus alone and something inside Karkat would shrink back down, crestfallen. He tried to ignore that feeling. 

But it was so strange. There were days when Dave appeared at school even when he hadn’t been on the bus that morning, like today. This time the bruise had swapped eyes and his arm was in a splint. All in all it was a pretty good excuse for missing the bus. 

“Hey Dave,” Karkat greeted him, waving. 

Dave always looked so surprised when Karkat called him out, but it was a pleasant kind of surprise, like finding a quarter on the sidewalk. It was generally hard to read Dave’s expression with those sunglasses he sometimes wore blocking his face, but Karkat was figuring it out. 

The glasses blocked most of the damage from Karkat’s view, but he could tell this bruise was a good one. Dave held his arm tenderly against his side, the home-made sling a stark white. 

Dave didn’t say anything in return, he only smiled and kept moving to class. 

That one smile kept Karkat content until the lunch bell rang, freeing him to see Dave again. 

Their usual lunch table was filled. Dave was in his regular seat. There was no lunch tray in front of him, but then again there never was. 

Karkat sat down across from him, glad that Dave was here today. Roxy and John were looking at something on her cellphone and giggling. Dirk looked bored, and Jade and Rose were comparing class notes. It was a perfectly ordinary day. 

Karkat couldn’t believe their nonchalance. Dave showed up to school late with his face busted up and an arm in a sling, looking like he got hit by a truck and no one thought to ask if Dave was alright, or at least express curiosity in what had happened. 

This was par for course when Dave showed up after missing days of school sporting some new mystery injury. It was driving Karkat crazy, and now he was angry. 

“Hey, Dave,” Karkat said, and at the words Dave’s shaded face flickered up to meet his gaze. “What happened to your arm?”

All talk at the table ground to a halt. Jade closed her notebook and Roxy put her phone away, looking scared. John was staring at him with his mouth open, and Karkat knew he’d committed some sort of taboo.

“It’s fine guys,” Dave said, waving away their concern. “I don’t mind.”

John’s face didn’t change expressions, looking slightly pained. “Dave…”

“I had an accident, that’s all,” Dave said, shrugging it off as Dirk put his head in his hands. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

The sling had vanished by the time the late bell rang and Karkat caught Dave fiddling with a pen he’d stolen from the ground, his arm straight and unbent. His shades were off, tucked back into the neck of his shirt, and his brow was smooth and unmarked. 

 

**Day 125**

Karkat spent more and more of his time noticing the little things about Dave, and about how his friends acted around him. He couldn’t put two and two together. He had the certainty there was something that he was missing, some vital piece of information that would make everything click into place.

Karkat couldn’t figure out what that was. 

Dave was there but sometimes he wasn’t. He wore the same red and white shirt and jeans every day. Sometimes his bruises would switch sides after he showed up late with another new wound to bear. Dirk was the strangest about it- he never questioned his brother. They rarely spoke. 

Karkat couldn’t wrap his head around it or piece it out from the dozen half-answers he wormed out of John when the ever vigilant Rose wasn’t listening. It was easy to get John to talk about everything except Dave. With Dave he’d clam up and fall into the same weary silence that plagued the rest of them the instant Dave wasn’t there to witness it. 

Out of a feeling of helpfulness he’d once asked the teacher for an extra set of worksheets when Dave had again missed the day, and the teacher had given him a strange look. Karkat never did get those worksheets. It should have been a small thing except it felt like Mt. Everest hovering over Karkat’s head, threatening him with what he still didn’t know. 

He sought out Dave, vying to get some fucking answers for once. Karkat found Dave out behind the school, alone. The dappled sunlight cast strange patterns across his sandy, almost white hair and pale skin. His uncovered eyes glittered that shade of red that they sometimes looked like when the light hit him right. His shades were nowhere to be seen. 

“Dave,” Karkat said. 

“Karkat,” Dave said back, unsurprised. Today the only mark on him was a split lip. There was no evidence of the gash from yesterday. Nothing but an old scar remained littered against the countless others that traced silver lines across the breadth of Dave’s exposed skin.

Karkat felt his breath catch. “I was looking for you,” he said. 

“You found me,” Dave said wryly, one eyebrow quirked up. “What’s up?”

The bell rang, signaling the start of the next class. Karkat ignored it. 

Dave tilted his head. “Aren’t you going to follow that?”

“No,” Karkat said. “Are you?”

“No.” Dave leaned away from him. “I’m skipping class again.”

“Why?” Karkat asked, starting off simple.

Dave shrugged. “I don’t feel like I need to learn their words anymore.”

It was such an odd answer that it threw Karkat off for a moment. “What do you mean by that?”

Dave didn’t reply. “You know,” he said instead. “I like it when you find me. The others have started to stop looking.”

It was another unsettling statement. The sun was high overheat but here in the shade Karkat felt a chill as the breeze picked up. He scuffed his feet through the acorns that spotted the fallen leaves. The branches rattled overhead as the wind brushed by them, rustling like dry bones. Karkat realized how alone the two of them were, out here in the trees behind the school now that class had started without them.  
Karkat didn’t know what to feel. “Stopped looking?”

Dave looked down, and when he looked up his shades were firmly in place on his face, shielding most of his expression even though Karkat hadn’t seen him make a move to put them on. His skin broke out in gooseflesh. 

“You don’t know,” Dave said at last. “You still haven’t realized.”

“Realized what?” Karkat demanded, knowing this was the cusp of the thing he was hunting, that ever elusive answer no one seemed keen to share with him. For the first time, Karkat thought there might be a reason why that was. A good fucking reason.

Dave’s eyes were covered but Karkat knew they were still that burning red he’d spotted an instant before the shades had appeared out of nowhere to prevent him from seeing the rest of them. 

“I won’t tell you,” Dave vowed. “I can’t. I enjoy our talks too much for that.”

“For what?” Karkat asked, desperate. “Dave, please. Something is going on here and its all centering around you. Can’t you feel it? There’s this dark thing hovering around you all the time and it scares me.”

“Do I scare you?” Dave asked sadly. The leaves at his feet picked up in an invisible breeze, jittering and jerking. 

“I just want to know what’s going on,” Karkat said, standing his ground. “So that I can help you.”

“You can’t.” Dave said it like it was the simplest thing in the world. “People have tried before.”

“You told me when we first met that you needed help,” Karkat reminded him, feeling desperate. “And every day I watch you walk around with some new injury you never explain. Can you blame me for thinking that something is wrong here?”

“You’re not wrong,” Dave answered, giving him one gleaming hint of information. “But I won’t say more than that.”

“So what?” Karkat challenged, feeling angry now. His anger fueled him, made him reckless. “You say you need help, but refuse to say from what? Do you even want to be helped?”

“I’m not sure I can be,” Dave admitted. “I thought I could be, once, but that was a long time ago.”

“Fuck you,” Karkat spat out, his hands in fists at his sides as his heart shuddered inside of him. “The hell kind of admission is that?”

“A fuckin’ true one,” Dave told him, oddly calm and patient. The only thing off about him was a sad tilt to his shoulders that screamed ‘don’t push this’ that Karkat ignored in favor of stepping closer. 

“Dave,” he said gently. “Please. You can tell me.”

“No.” It was final, a dark promise. The sun went behind a cloud and the shade grew darker between them. Dave was so pale that in the shadows his skin looked ghostly. The wind ran its fingers through his corn silk hair. 

Karkat watched Dave and opened his mouth to say something else, to plead with him, but then Dave leaned back against the trunk of the ancient live oak and Karkat realized something that made his blood run cold.

He could clearly see the rough, deep-riveted bark of the tree through Dave’s body. It was just a flicker, blink-and-it-was-gone, but it left its imprint seared into Karkat’s memory even after he’d turned and bolted from the thing that looked like Dave.

The halls of the school were deserted as he ran and dove into the empty art room, gasping in deep breaths that left him shuddering. 

What the _fuck_ was going on in this school?


	2. Things that Seem Still

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys probably know by now how I feel about Chapter Twos, but here we go! It's chapter two!

**Day 124**  
Dave didn’t get on the bus in the morning. Karkat was vibrating with repressed anxiety as he watched Dirk make his way to the back of the bus alone. 

Dirk caught Karkat’s eye as the bus jolted into motion. His voice was flat. “He’s not coming today.”

Karkat didn’t reply. Was Dave avoiding him? The entire bus was quiet this morning. The somber mood hung over the student body like Karat’s glum was contagious. When the bus arrived it was to a silent fanfare. The other students walked off single-file wordlessly. Even John was subdued, no laughter from him. 

What the fuck was going on?

Karkat marched with his hands in fists. He met up with everyone in the art room before the first bell rang. Dave’s empty seat burned in the corner of his vision the entire time. “What’s going on?” Karkat asked. “Why does everyone look like someone killed their dog?”

John winced, his expression grim. Rose looked like she’d love nothing more than to strangle him with her manicured nails. Jade looked away as Roxy sat down her phone. Jane looked away. 

“Cut him some slack,” Roxy said before anyone could answer. “He still doesn’t know.”

“That’s no excuse,” Rose argued, her eyes wet and hot with anger. 

“Guys, easy,” John said, swallowing thickly. “We promised Dave, remember?”

Karkat latched onto that last line. “Promised him what?” Karkat demanded. “That you wouldn’t tell me what _the fuck’s_ going on here?”

Silence met his words and Karkat knew that he was right. That was why John’s answers were never helpful—these fuckers had a deal going on to purposefully keep him ignorant!

John flattened down his unruly hair with his palm nervously. “We’ve got to tell him something,” he said slowly. “He’ll figure it out soon anyway, especially after today. The whole school will be off its shits today.”

Karkat remembered the way the other students had been talking in lowered voices, their expressions bleak and painful. What was going on? Was Karkat really the only one who didn’t know?

“Fine,” Rose said stiffly, turning away. “Just keep your lips sealed, Egbert. We made a promise. I’m not going to be the one to break it.”

John stuck out his tongue at her. Rose flicked him off in return.

“So,” John said, turning back to face him, lowering his voice as Mrs. Paint bustled into the room to begin setting up the classroom for the day. “Things’ll be a little weird today. It’s the anniversary.”

“Of what?” Karkat shot back, hissing quietly so the teacher wouldn’t overhear them. 

John gazed at him sadly. “Ask Dave,” he said. 

“Dave is skipping class today,” Karkat answered hotly. “I can’t ask him shit.”

“You can,” John told him, looking around like he expected Dave to suddenly appear out of thin air. “I’m sure he’s here somewhere. That guy’s too nosey to stay away for long.”

There was truth to John’s words but Karkat still didn’t believe him. 

The bell rang then, and Karkat shrugged his way free of John’s piercing blue gaze and left for his first class.  
…

 

It wasn’t until lunch that Karkat got the opportunity to speak to everyone again. History, the most boring class, drug on for five forevers before the bell finally rang. Dave’s spot at the lunch table was empty. Karkat had been expecting this, but the loss still hurt. 

“Hey,” he said, sliding into his seat. John was picking at his food and not eating it. No one else was eating much either. “Anyone going to tell me what’s going on?”

There was no reply. Jane pulled a red frosted cupcake out of her bag and stood and walked outside with it, her steps small and tight. Roxy watched her go with a sad look. 

There was a tense, silent moment that stretched on between them, growing bigger and deeper with every second. Karkat held out and waited, letting the moment drag on until the oppressive weight of it became unbearable. 

“You want answers?” Rose asked him, breaking at last. “Follow Jane, dumbass.”

Karkat eyed her with suspicion. Rose had been the most unhelpful of them all, and this change of heart wasn’t promising. Still, he left to follow after the older girl. 

Jane didn’t seem to realize she was being followed as she walked with her head down and her shoulders slumped. She met up with another student who was carrying flowers under her arm, and together the two of them walked outside the front doors and around the side of the building to a blank area of gray cinderblock wall that Karkat had passed a dozen times by now.

Only it wasn’t so blank and gray now. A huge bank of flowers lay heaped on the concrete, flowers of all types and colors. There were candles, skateboards, and even small teddy bears at what was clearly a makeshift memorial. None of this had been here the day before. 

Jane knelt and set the red cupcake down by a small picture frame that lay at the center of the offerings. She stood and quickly walked away with the other girl, wiping at her eyes. 

Karkat waited until they were gone to creep cautiously around the corner of the building. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Some part of his mind was cataloguing everything that he saw, numbing him, so that when he walked in front of the memorial he already knew what he would see. 

It still hit him like a fist to the gut. Karkat thought he was going to throw up. 

Dave stared up at him out of the photograph that lay framed in the center, surrounded by a school’s worth of offerings and cards. Someone had graffitied the words ‘we miss you dave!” in red letters above the area in drippy spray paint. In the photograph he was smiling in a way that Karkat had never seen before, something light and open without a hint of the grief that lay around him like a shroud.

Greif. That’s what the dark cloud was that hovered over John and Rose whenever someone brought up Dave. It hit Karkat with a strike of insight—they were _grieving_. 

Karkat studied the photograph. Dave was smiling, his face sunburned and happy, his shades folded into the stretched-out neck of a familiar red and white shirt. There was a single red rose that sat forlorn before the photograph, a note taped to its stem that Karkat didn’t have the nerve to read.

Anniversary, John had said. _Today was the anniversary_. 

Looking around at the memorial and remembering the somber air of the school, coupled with the way Karkat had seen the live oak tree through Dave’s transparent ghostly skin… it formed a bleak picture.

It came as no surprise as Karkat looked up and made eye contact with Dave, who was lounging with one shoulder against the wall. His shades covered his eyes. It was as if he’d stepped out of the air itself to appear before Karkat, summoned by the offerings at his feet.

“I don’t understand,” Karkat admitted, fingering the rose as he set it back down before the photo of Dave. 

“Me neither,” Dave told him, shrugging. “You’re not supposed to be able to see me.”

The wind blew then, ruffling Karkat’s hair. Dave stood untouched in the breeze. It was like the wind cut right through him. Karkat’s blood ran chill. 

“What do you mean by that?” He asked weakly, trying to force the world to make sense again.

“I get that Dirk and John and Rose and them can see and hear me,” Dave said. “That makes sense. We were always so close before… but you? You’re a mystery.”

Karkat caught the hidden meaning clearly. Karkat couldn’t ignore the truth, not when it was staring at him with red eyes on the other side of his own fucking memorial. 

“What happened to you?” Karkat asked helplessly, his heart in pieces as he thought back through the past month of friendship he’d shared with the specter. How had he never noticed it before? Karkat flashed back through the days, the way Dave never ate, appeared out of thin air, had injuries that healed in hours and bruises that switches sides when Karkat blinked. The teacher he’d asked for a makeup packet for Dave, Rose’s hostility, the way John grew nervous when he noticed Karkat and Dave together, his odd words about protection… It was all coming together. 

This was the piece he’d been missing, the final straw of a puzzle he’d never set out to solve. 

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it was rude to ask a ghost what happened to him?” Dave said, grinning darkly. It wasn’t a happy expression and it faded quickly, the humor lost on him. 

Ghost. Dave was a ghost. He’d been dead this entire time, haunting his friends, his old school, sticking obstinately to his old routine to cling to any normalcy he could gain.

“You’ve been a ghost this whole time?” Karkat asked, just for a final clarification. 

“Yeah,” Dave said. “Boo.”

Karkat had the audacity to roll his eyes now that the initial shock was wearing off. His best friend was dead. This was not an ideal situation. In fact, his was about as worse-case as they come. Dave was dead, he was fucking dead. What the fuck?

“You’re taking this rather well,” Dave pointed out, and Karkat scrubbed at his tired eyes. 

“No, trust me, I’m having a mental breakdown on the inside,” Karkat said, sighing. He felt hollowed out with sorrow, like someone had taken a spoon to his organs and scraped his ribcage clean. He didn’t know what to say. What was there to say? He couldn’t undo death and promise Dave that everything was going to be okay. 

“By the way, to stave off that mental breakdown,” Dave said. “I’m not actually dead.”

What? Karkat blinked at Dave and his shades were gone again. Those red eyes were honest and earnest. 

“I’m not,” Dave swore. “I’m not exactly alive, but I never died.”

“Then why are you like this?” Karkat asked, pleading, not understanding. 

“Rose thinks it’s because I’m as good as dead,” Dave tried to explain. “There was an accident. I didn’t make it out.”

An accident. “The anniversary,” Karkat toned with sickened wonder. “It happened today.”

“Last year,” Dave told him. “It’s been a year to the day.”

“You’ve been like this ever since?” Karkat asked.

Dave bent down and picked up the picture frame with his face on it. “I remember this day,” he said, grinning fondly. “John’s the one who took this photo. I never did like it much.”

“Shut up,” Karkat said, his hands shaking. “Dave… what the fuck happened?”

Dave sat the photo down on the dusty concrete with a small click. He cleared his throat. “Not here,” he said. “The bell’s about to ring.”

“I’ll skip it,” Karkat promised, meaning it. Fuck class, Dave was more important. This month-long mystery was more important. He had to have his answers before he went insane. “Anything. Just tell me the truth.”

Dave’s hard gaze softened at the words. “Okay,” he said. “Get off the bus this afternoon with Dirk. I’ll tell you then.”

Karkat grabbed hold of the promise and held it close to his heart. Dave was dead. He wasn’t dead. He was a ghost, a ghost that made lame jokes and acted human enough to fool Karkat into believing that everything was fine for a solid month. And even after realizing that something was up with Dave, the word ghost never crossed his mind. 

It was kind of pathetic really. 

“Do you promise?” Karkat demanded, wanting proof of Dave’s commitment. 

Dave held up one hand and folded it across his heart. “I swear.”

“I’ll see you this afternoon then,” Karkat said, and Dave faded out of sight like mist in the morning sunlight.  
…

 

Karkat couldn’t focus for the rest of the day. His skin felt jittery and he struggled to pay attention to the teachers and their boring lessons and he dreamed of Dave until American Government 101 was over. John caught him in the hallway, his face concerned as Karkat bolted for the bus. 

“You saw him, didn’t you?” John asked simply, his tone far too knowing for the naïve innocence that was usually found in his bright blue eyes, eyes which right now were seeped in a sad wisdom. 

“I’ve been seeing him all month, ever since I got here,” Karkat hissed at John under his breath as they boarded the bus. “Why didn’t you fucking clue me in?”

“To what?” John asked. “How? Was I supposed to point at him and tell you that he wasn’t as he seemed? Karkat… we don’t even know what he is or why he’s here.”

“He’s still your friend,” Karkat accused. “You should know that above all.”

“Trust me, I fuckin’ know,” John said, signing as he ran his fingers through his short black hair. “Do you think this was easy for us? We thought no one else could see him.”

“Until me,” Karkat said bitterly. “Ha.”

“What’s so funny?” John asked as the bus jolted into motion. Jade and Dirk sat beside them, but neither said anything. 

“It’s just that ever since I moved here the world’s turned upside down on me,” Karkat explained, feeling off-put. “Ghosts? Really?”

Jade looked sharply at him when he mentioned ghosts, her face panicked. “Keep your voice down!” She hissed. 

Karkat scowled at her before forcing his voice to lower. “I’m just saying that it’s fucking crazy. _This is fucking crazy._ ”

“You’re telling me,” John whispered. “I’m the one who’s been best friends with a ghost for the past year.” The bitterness in John’s voice was shocking in its potency. “Karkat, listen,” John said, looking Karkat right in the eyes. His voice was rushed. “We couldn’t do it. All of us together couldn’t help him and God knows how hard we fucking tried. Are you listening? We couldn’t help him.” John studied Karkat with keen, fevered eyes. “Maybe you can. Maybe that’s why you can see him too.”

Sweat dripped down the small of Karkat’s back and made his shirt stick to the cracked red leather seats. “What are you saying?”

“Maybe there’s a reason you can see him too,” John told him, his shoulders hunched in on himself with utter exhaustion, the weight of Dave’s secret weighing heavily on him. “Maybe you were supposed to meet him.”

The bus bounced down the dirt road, throwing up clouds of choking dust that blocked the sun that cut its way through the mire in thick beams, illuminating the pine needles and oak leaves that littered the ditches as the bus crawled to a halt in front of a curving dirt driveway, the mailbox hanging sideways, the pole crooked.

Dirk stood up and Karkat followed him with his heart in his throat. Dave was causally leaning against the mailbox, waiting. He and Dirk stared at each other wordlessly before Dirk turned to stare at him. “You know?”

“I know,” Karkat said, feeling like he had been initiated into something secret and elusive, some elitist club he’d never signed up for. 

“He figured it out,” Dave cut in, grinning in a way that was the polar opposite of cheerful. 

“You stayin’ here?” the bus driver called out to him through the still open door. “This ain’t your stop, kid.”

“Its fine, Slick,” Karkat called back, standing his ground under Dirk’s glaring gaze. 

The bus doors closed and the vehicle pulled away in a cloud of dust. Karkat’s clothes were coated in a thick layer of the dry grime. Dirk stared at him, his hands in his pockets. “Follow me.”

Dirk turned away and Karkat followed after him down the long driveway. He couldn’t see the end of it from the road as it twisted its way into the river bottoms. Trees hung over head in a thick canopy but the unrelenting sun was suffocating, the wind lifting with the promise of rain hanging dark on the horizon in a thin belt of cloud. Dave trotted along beside them, his feet leaving no prints behind him in the sand.  
“What’d you tell him?” Dirk asked his brother, his voice blank as his face.

“He knows I’m not really dead,” Dave said, his voice lowered. “That’s about all.”

Dirk grunted and said nothing more. The driveway went on forever, Karkat marching along under the burning sun until at last the house came into sight. 

It was a single wide trailer with the windows boarded up, a dead blue car made of rust on cinderblocks in the yard with its tires gone. A few half-grown and bushy longleaf pines sprung up randomly from the yard, one sagging sideways. The grass was neatly clipped and the stairs leading up to the door had recently been redone, but the meticulous outer appearance couldn’t cover up the forlorn, abandoned feel to the place. It was obvious that the trailer had once been a decrepit pit but had undergone an extreme makeover in the past few months that had tried to gloss over its stains and wear with new paint and polish.

Dave opened the door with a flourish, waving them in. The home was clearly under revision with the wallpaper in the middle of being replaced, but every surface had been scrubbed clean. An air conditioning unit in the back window made the room instantly welcoming after the heat of outside. 

“This way,” Dave said, leading Karkat back into a bedroom that was across the way from an identical room that must have belonged to Dirk. Dirk flopped down onto the sofa and pulled out his class notes and a laptop held together only by wires. 

Karkat closed the door behind him, and then he was suddenly standing in Dave’s room. Posters adorned the walls. The bed was neatly made. Wires snaked across the floor to a turntable hoisted up on cinderblocks. Everything looked neat but the room itself clearly hadn’t been lived in for months. There was a fine layer of dust on the floor, coating each crack, and there were cobwebs in the corners. 

“Sweet,” Karkat said, nodding at the turntable.

Dave made no move. Here, standing among all of the things he’d possessed before the accident, he looked more like a ghost than ever before. “What do you want to know?”

“Who all can see you?” Karkat asked immediately. 

“John,” Dave answered at once. “Rose. Dirk. Jade. Roxy most of the time. Sometimes Jane, but not always.”

“Do you know why that is?” Karkat asked. 

Dave shrugged. “I guess its because they’re the ones who knew me before. Or they’re the ones I’m haunting, for lack of a better term.”

“Haunting?” Karkat asked, feeling sick. “I thought you weren’t dead?”

“Still a ghost bro,” Dave said. “Isn’t that what ghosts do? Haunt the shit they cared about when they were alive?”

“I don’t know,” Karat snapped back at him. “I’m not an expert in the paranormal, Dave.”

The ghost smiled. “Rose is,” he said quietly. “She was all about things like this before I happened. After, she was the one who heralded everything they tried to do to help me. There were ceremonies, séances, rituals, some minor graverobbing, the whole nine yards.”

Karkat could easily imagine that. Rose always had that spooky, witchy vibe to her. “I’m guessing nothing worked?” Karkat said sadly, looking at Dave as his form wavered so that Karkat could see the faded wallpaper through him once he let his eyes unfocus.

“Nothing,” Dave replied. 

“So,” Karkat said slowly, turning to face him as he mulled the words over in his mind. “Why can I see you?”

Dave blinked, his shades suddenly on the table beside the dusty bed. Even in the shadows his eyes were red as stained glass. They were beautiful. “I’m not sure,” Dave said, equally slow. “John thinks it’s because you’re special.”

Karkat snorted. “I’m not a fucking medium,” he said. “I’ve never seen ghosts before you, you know. Before this, my life was normal.”

Dave grinned wryly, one side of his mouth raising higher on one side. “What do you call normal?”

“Not fucking this,” Karkat said, suddenly exhausted. “My normal is city high-rises and hazy skies, not southern swamps, pollen, and ghostly apparitions.”

Dave reached out and picked up the alarm clock from beside his shades. “Can an apparition do this?” He asked, switching the clock from hand to hand. 

“How can you do that?” Karkat asked, watching the display with unease. It hit him then that he was alone in a trailer in the middle of nowhere with Dirk, someone he didn’t really know, and Dave, someone who wasn’t exactly alive and could pick up solid objects. 

For some reason he wasn’t afraid. He might not have known Dave for very long, but on some level he realized that Dave wasn’t out to harm anyone. If anything, the ghost just seemed… lost. 

“I’m not sure,” Dave said, setting the clock back down. “If I concentrate, I can pick up or move small things sometimes. Not always. It’s hard to do and I can’t manage it for long.”

“Is that all you can do?” Karkat asked, curious. 

“I can choose when to make myself seen,” Dave said, squinting at him, his accent thick. “Though that doesn’t seem to work on you.”

“What’s with the injuries?” Karkat asked, ignoring that last statement. “I’ve seen them switch places and heal overnight. That’s not normal.”

Dave frowned. “Rose thinks it’s a pattern thing,” he tried to explain. “Like, she thinks I’m cycling through everything that happened to me, stuck in some hellish pattern in limbo.”

“But you’re not injured now,” Karkat pointed out. He’d been watching Dave all afternoon. He’d know it if he was limping or bleeding somewhere.

Dave held up his hand, which was shaking. “Three fingers are broken,” he announced it plainly, and now that Karkat was looking he could see the swelling, see the purple around the joints. Dave must have seen Karkat’s face sour because he quickly said. “Don’t feel bad about it. I can’t feel pain like this.”

“That doesn’t hurt?” Karkat asked as Dave flexed his clearly broken, crooked fingers. 

“I can’t even feel it,” Dave admitted. “I haven’t been able to feel anything for a long time.”

The forlornness of Dave’s voice made Karkat’s heart hurt. “Anything?” He asked. 

“Nothing,” Dave said. “Not the wind, not pain or hunger, not even my own hands. It fucking sucks, honestly. I’d almost rather hurt again.” He studied his broken fingers and bent them again, as if testing for pain and coming up blank. “I don’t like it.”

“I’m sorry,” Karkat said, meaning it. “Can I… can I try something?” John’s words earlier rang in his mind, about helping Dave. Maybe… maybe he could. 

“What is it?” Dave asked. 

“Hold out your hand,” Karkat asked, running on instinct as Dave complied with his non-broken hand. Karkat held his breath as he reached out to Dave, only to have his fingers pass right through Dave’s outreached hand like it wasn’t there. He didn’t even feel a tingle or a hint of coldness. It was just empty air. 

Dave lowered his hand. “I should have warned you,” he said, looking away. “I can’t touch the living.”

“I thought you’re weren’t dead?” Karkat said again. His voice was shaking as he stared at his hand, unnerved at the fact he’d just seen his hand go right through Dave’s. 

“Doesn’t mean I’m with the living,” Dave said, faking a yawn. 

It was the perfect opening to ask, “Then what are you?”

Dave looked at him, really looked at him, with his hair just beginning to fall into his brilliant red eyes. The eye contact felt more real than trying to touch hands had. It lit the air between them on fire. “I’m just me,” he said, his voice echoing. “That’s all I’ve ever been.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the plot thickens....
> 
> Mwahahaahahahahahah!


	3. Shallows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter three baby!

**Day 121**

Things didn’t really change after that. 

Dave still followed Dirk to school most mornings, and spoke with John and Rose and Jade, who by this point had fully adopted Karkat into the inner ring of secrecy now that he knew the truth about Dave being a ghost. 

Karkat still didn’t know what had happened and he lacked the courage required to simply Google the answer. In a town this small, an accident involving a then-fifteen year old should have at least made the local news. John refused to answer and Rose would kill him on sight if he asked her, which left Dave, who shook his head and vanished the one time Karkat had tried to push the subject. 

Karkat knew if the answer was something bad enough that Dave would rather dissolve into nothingness rather than answer that what had happened must have been tragic. In his spare time, during class, Karkat would daydream about car accidents and drunk drivers and falling trees, any host of ordinary bad-luck accidents that might have done this to Dave. 

It might have been something simple, like food poisoning. Or it might have been something worse. 

With the injuries that were constantly appearing on Dave, he was limping again today, badly, Karkat suspected the answer was something he didn’t really want to know. 

The late summer day was blistering but there was a hint of coolness in the breeze, the promise of rain heavy on the gray horizon. Dave sat by Karkat during history class and kept him entertained and distracted with his only-you-can-see-me antics, which cumulated in him drawing a dick on Karkat’s paper in the three seconds he wasn’t looking directly at his pencil. 

Karkat wordlessly erased the dick drawn over the top of his assignment and Dave made a noise of disgust. “Come on, Karkat,” he said, complaining loudly, secure in the fact that no one else could hear him. “What’s wrong with a little bit of dick and balls?”

Karkat rolled his eyes as he lightly sketched out a better, superior penis over the erased dick. Dave hooted in support, overjoyed Karkat was playing along, and made a grab for the spare pencil Karkat had set on his desk for the ghost to use. 

The pencil jittered when Dave’s hand grabbed at it, but it didn’t move as his fingers closed over it. Dave tried again, his brow furrowed in concentration, but the pencil remained unmoved on the desk. Dave shrugged and gave up with good grace, but Karkat could easily read his frustration. 

_You okay?_ He wrote out beside the sketched dick, unable to speak without drawing attention. 

“I’m fine,” Dave answered, reading the words. “It’s just that I used to be able to do this like this.”

_Like pick up a pencil?_ Karkat wrote guiltily, his own writing utensil weighing heavily in his hand. 

“Yeah,” Dave said, nodding. “I used to be able to do more than slam doors and throw acorns, but it’s strange. It’s like everything’s slippin’ away from me.”

Karkat frowned, the teacher droning on in the background. How do you feel? He carefully wrote out the question beside the previous one. 

Dave took a long time to answer. “Numb,” he said at last, looking away, his shades over his eyes again as the first drops of rain began to rattle against the windows. “I just feel so fuckin’ numb.”

 

**Day 128.**  
It rained all day and into the night. Dirk didn’t come to school because the rain had made his driveway into a sea of mud. The bus itself had trouble navigating the wet back roads and mud holes that populated Slick’s route. 

Rose was planning something, that much was obvious. Her gaze was both serious and devious. “Karkat,” she said, and her voice left him no option. “You’re not going to class today.”

“I’m not?” Karkat asked, feeling a wave of irate argumentative urges wash over him.

He was about to argue when Rose said, “It’s about Dave.”

“And?” Karkat still shot back, his voice hot as he pulled his hood over his head. The rain was still pouring down. Dave’s seat was conspicuously empty. 

Rose motioned at John, who looked excited enough to explode out of his skin. “You’re one of us now,” she told him. “That means you’re joining us. Officially.”

Sensing some kind of fucked up initiation in his near future, Karkat protested. “Like hell I am.” He had a quiz in Geometry. He couldn’t afford to skip class. 

“Dave’ll be waiting,” Rose said, clearly baiting him. 

Karkat sucked in his breath and counted to ten before he let it out. “Fucking hell,” he said, caught. She knew just how to hook him. “What do I have to do?”

They ended up in the abandoned gym behind the school, which was filled with equally abandoned welding equipment and spare archery targets. The rain echoed off the red tin roof. Rose had been right, Dave was leaning one shoulder against one of the square archery targets, trying to make himself look small. 

Karkat couldn’t help the worry that shot through him when he saw how bad Dave was today. He was holding himself curled up like his ribs were bruised, nursing his right arm, which was in a sling. He walked over to them like he had an ache in his core, but there was a smile on his face. “Sup guys.”

Jade looked equally displeased with Dave’s scruffy appearance, but she didn’t comment on it as she set a pack of chalk on the ground. 

“Cousin,” Rose greeted him warmly. “We brought Karkat, as requested.”

Dave studied him briefly, just a flick of the eyes behind his shades. “Good.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Karkat asked. He wasn’t afraid, exactly, but there was a tingle that ran across his flesh like repressed lightning. He set his backpack down on the concrete floor. It echoed in the huge, still room. 

Jade and Rose were outlining a huge chalk circle on the floor in-between the equipment they’d carefully shoved to the side. Rose pulled tall candles out of her black bag and lit them with matches. Outside, thunder shook the school. 

The door opened and Jane walked in, followed by Roxy. “Sorry,” Jane apologized, squinting in Dave’s direction like she was peering through water. “Teachers were sneaking around.”

“Were you followed?” Rose asked, distractedly, aligning the candles within circles inside the larger circle. 

What was going on here?

“No,” Roxy said. Rose lit another candle. The crackle of the burning match was the loudest sound in the world. 

“I think they’re catching on to us,” Jade said wryly, kneeling next to Rose.

“They won’t find us here,” Rose promised, and she set the tip of the burning match in her mouth to kill it, eating the small flame. “Dave?”

“The coast is clear,” the ghost answered, staring at the ground. His shades reflected darkly, hiding his eyes. “I’m watching the doors for us.”

“Good.” Rose finished arranging the candles and they cast a warm, flickering glow over the edges of the circle. “Everyone, get inside the circle.”

Karkat was the only one who hesitated. “What occult shit are you up to?” He demanded to know. 

Rose rolled her eyes at him. “Karkat, relax,” she said. “The circle only amplifies spiritual energy. It makes it easier for Dave to interact with us.”

“Not all of us can see him as easily as you do,” Jane quipped, squinting in Dave’s direction. 

Karkat hesitantly put one foot over the line of chalk on the floor, the stepped in when he felt nothing amiss. Dave followed after him, and when the specter stepped into the circle all of the candles flickered. 

“Dave, there you are,” Jane greeted him warmly. “I thought that was you.”

Dave grinned at her, trying to hide his hidden hurts as he angled his bum arm away from his friend. “Sup, Jane.”

To Karkat Dave looked exactly the same, albeit a little more solid around the edges. 

Dave held out a hand, gauging the air around him. “Nice work, Rose,” he complemented. “This circle feels excellent.”

“The moon is full tonight,” Rose said by way of explanation. She pushed her headband higher up on her head, shoving her choppy bangs out of the way. “Let’s begin,” she said. “Karkat?”

Karkat was still standing at the edge of the circle as everyone besides him and Dave sat down on the ground. “What?”

“Come closer,” Rose waved him over. “We don’t bite.”

As odd as this was, his curiosity drove him forward. “What do I need to do?”

“Don’t break the circle,” Rose warned him. “It’s safe enough with Dave here to protect us, but whatever happens, do not leave and or break the circle. Understood?”

“Got it,” Karkat huffed, kneeling next to her as Dave took a seat across from him. 

Rose was staring at him. “Karkat,” she said, her eyes dark and serious. “You’re going to need to trust us.”

Karkat might have no fucking clue what was going on, but he did trust Rose not to harm him. “Okay.”

She looked away. “We’ll have to do this without Dirk so we’ll be missing a member, but we added Karkat so the energy should balance itself out. I call this circle to order,” Rose said. “With the authority of a Seer of Light, I seal us away.”

The air itself shivered with power, and the rest of the gym fell away. Beyond the circle there was nothing but darkness. Karkat’s head whipped around, but the only things left in his sight were what the candlelight illuminated. The walls were gone. The roof was gone. Even the sound of the rain was gone. 

What the fuck? Karkat’s breathing kicked up a notch. 

“Relax,” Rose told him. “We’re still in the gym, and your fear will corrupt the circle.”

Karkat swallowed thickly. He’d been expecting candles and circles, and maybe some quartz crystals, a Ouija board even, not this. The air shivered against him, whispering with unseen energy. 

Something buzzed just at the edges of Karkat’s awareness, moving beyond the light from the candles. 

“Ignore it,” Rose said, her voice tight. “It’s just a horrorterror.”

“A what?” Karkat asked, and his mind formed the impression of tendrils, tentacles, roses and thorns and suckercups, a vast great hungry _something_ that hovered just out of reach of the light.

“We’re sitting in a doorway,” Rose reminded him. “There’s always other things out there that try to come through.”

What the fuck? This was magic, real fucking magic, and Karkat was sitting in the middle of it. 

“It’s harmless as long as we stay inside the circle,” Dave told him, his voice lowered. “I’ll keep us safe.”

“Ah yes, out Knight in shining armor,” Rose muttered, focusing on drawing out something on paper. “Karkat, hold this,” she thrust small silver chain at him, like one a necklace charm would hang from. At one end there was a metal pointer shaped like a teardrop. 

“What the fuck did you just give me?” Karkat asked, his own voice low. 

“A pointer,” Rose said, her eyebrows raised. “Hold on,” she reached into her bag and unfolded a book that she laid open on the ground in front of her. Calling the object a book might have been a bit of an overstatement—it was nothing more than printed pages bound in twine. Rose set a laminated sheet in front of him, something with twelve circles and symbols.

“What the fuck’s going on?” Karkat asked, feeling nervous. Outside the circle, the horrorterror lashed its tentacles. 

“Relax!” Rose ordered him. “Karkat, nothing here will harm you. You need to calm down.”

Karkat closed his eyes and struggled to not freak the fuck out. It was harder than expected to get his emotions under control when he hadn’t the faintest clue what new shit he’d gotten himself into. 

“Now pay attention,” Rose said. “This is important. Today, we’re going to find out what your classpect is.” 

Despite himself, Karkat was interested. “What’s that?”

“Every person is made up of two fundamental building blocks that shape who they are and what they’re meant to do,” Rose explained to him. “One class, and one aspect. We’re going to find out what yours is so that we can better know how to use it to help Dave.” She tilted her chin at him, considering. “Plus depending on what it is, it might explain why you can see Dave so clearly.”

“Okay,” Karkat said, down for anything that might help Dave. “What do I need to do?”

Rose handed him the sheet of paper. “These are the aspects,” she said. “One of these symbols should seem familiar to you. Which is it?”

Karkat stared at the colorful laminated sheet. There were no words on it, but there were symbols. A bright purple double-twist, a white wing-like shape, a symbol like a spiral. None of them seemed to stand out to him. “I don’t see anything,” he said.

Rose took the paper away and drew out a deck of twelve cards. “These contain the aspects,” she told him. “I simply want you to pick the one that calls out to you.”

The rest of the circle leaned in and held their breath as Rose shuffled the cards and held them out to Karkat. 

“Draw,” Rose ordered him, her eyes flinty. 

This was stupid. Cards weren’t magic, and to prove it Karkat chose a card at random and held it up. A slash with three weeping drops ran across the card’s face, red as heartblood.

“Blood,” Rose muttered, surprised. She shuffled the cards and again held them out to him. 

Karkat chose a new card silently and turned it over, surprised to see the sign of blood again. 

“One more time,” Rose said, and she held out the shuffled cards. 

This time, Karkat took his time. He ran his fingertips over each card until one felt warmer than the others, sticky beneath his fingertips. He chose that card and flipped it over. The red, weeping face of the same exact card as before stared up at him, and there was something sticky still under his nails that he tried to scrub off. 

Rose caught his wrist and motioned to his fingertips. “Blood,” she said matter-of-factly. “That’s a pretty fucking strong sign.”

Karkat stared at the blood on his fingertips. The card was _bleeding._ “What the fuck?”

“Blood’s rare,” Rose muttered, not listening to him. Her brow was furrowed. “Shit.”

“What is it?” Karkat asked, numb, and outside the circle there came a shriek. It was off in the distance, but still bone-chilling. 

Jade looked up and her eyes were gleaming unnaturally green. “It means you’re Blood,” she told him. 

“Class time,” Rose said, hurried. “Quickly, we can’t stay here for much longer.” She dug through her bag again and handed Karkat a single dice and arranged a different sheet of laminated paper before him. “Quick, throw it three times.”

Karkat tossed the dice onto the paper. It rolled and came to a stop on a written word. Everyone gasped but him. 

Karkat leaned closer and read the word Knight printed in black ink.

“Again,” Rose said, her voice shaking. 

Karkat threw the dice. It rolled and landed perfectly up on snake-eyes, the word Knight underneath it. He wordlessly threw the dice a third time an achieved the same result. The impossible odds sat wrongly with him, made him aware of the magic at play here. 

“Karkat Vantas,” Rose mused thoughtfully, sitting back. “Knight of Blood.”

The words sent a shiver through him. 

“That’s why you can see Dave!” Jade said happily. “You share a class!”

“Or it might be a Blood thing,” Rose considered logically, clearly excited. “There’s still so much we don’t know about Blood.”

“What if it’s both?” John asked. 

The thing in the distance shrieked again, and it was much closer this time. Jane covered her ears. 

“Rose,” Dave said, perfectly calm. “Close the circle. Now.”

The horrorterror lashed out at them but was unable to come into the light. The thing in the distance screamed and the candles flickered. 

“Okay,” Rose said, speaking fast. “As the Seer of Light, I unseal us from the spirit realm and return us to the mortal plane.”

Lightning crashed overhead so loud that the windows rattled and shook. The darkness bled away, revealing the rainy gym once more. 

The horrorterror was gone. The air still thrummed with power as Dave snapped his fingers. At once every candle went out. 

“Show off,” Rose commented, packing up her beloved book.

“Uh,” Karkat said, his ears still ringing from the crash of thunder. “Anyone want to fill me in on what the fuck just happened?”

“Hold on,” Rose said, scratching away a section of the chalk circle to break it. “I have to make sure no one of us brought back anything nasty with us.”

“We’re all clean,” Dave told her, sounding sure of himself, and Jane jumped like she hadn’t been expecting the voice. Roxy’s eyes looked hollow, like shallow pools of water. 

“And what did we learn?” Jade asked. 

“Karkat’s classpect,” Rose said at once. “That was the goal, remember?”

Jade bit her lower lip and worried it between her teeth. “We’ll have to initiate him as a coven member then,” she said.

“Later,” Rose waved the suggestion away, closing her eyes in concentration. “I’m sure he’s freaking out right now.”

Karkat rolled his eyes at her. “Magic?” He said weakly.

“Magic,” Rose confirmed.

“I don’t understand” Karkat admitted, his mind reeling.

“Dave’s a ghost,” Jade tried to explain. “His energy powers the circle and Rose’s words give it shape.”

Rose opened her eyes and looked at him. She extended her hand to him. “Welcome, Knight of Blood.”

The words sent a shiver through him, tugging at strings in his soul he didn’t know were there. Distantly, Karkat felt like this was the start of something. He reached out and grasped her hand firmly in his own and a spark zinged between them. 

To the side, Dave watched with silent eyes. 

 

**Day 105**  
Things were normal after that. Dave took a day or two to recuperate from powering the circle, but besides that things continued as normal.

“Classpects?” Karkat asked weakly, sitting at the lunch table. Dirk was here today and pissed that he’d missed the ceremony. 

Rose nodded, lowering her voice. “Everyone has one,” she said. “And some are more common than others.”

“You’re a Seer of Light?” Karkat asked, remembering her title from the circle. 

Rose dipped her chin. “I am,” she said proudly. 

“Witch of Space!” Jade exclaimed, pointing to herself. 

“Rouge of Void,” Roxy said.

“Maid of Life,” Jane sighed. “I’m afraid that’s why I can’t see Dave outside of the circles or without help,” she said. “I’m not meant to interact with the non-living.”

“Heir of Breath,” John said, sculpting his mashed potatoes into a tower. “So that makes me the leader.”

“Not so fast,” Dirk chuckled, nodding at himself. “Prince of Heart, and John, we have Blood now. Karkat technically has equal claim to the title.”

“Let John be the leader,” Karkat said at once, not understanding but not wanting to get more involved than he had to be.

“Ha!” John said smugly. “Karkat, I knew I liked you.”

“Shut up,” Karkat growled. “And you, Dave?” He knew from before that Dave shared the Knight part with him, but he was infinitely curious about which of the twelve aspects Dave was. Karkat had been studying them all day out of Rose’s little book, eager to understand what he’d seen.

“Knight of Time,” Dave said softly. 

“But what does this all mean?” Karkat asked, somewhat sure that poking at cult shit like this had been what had happened to Dave in the ‘accident’. 

“After Dave, well, became a ghost,” Rose explained, lowering her voice so the other students wouldn’t over hear her. “I wanted to find ways to help him, so I started looking up magic and stumbled upon the classpecting system and circles and spectral power. It was a natural progression from there.”

So it wasn’t cult shit that had gotten Dave. Karkat felt slightly better at that. “And Horrorterrors?” Karkat asked, feeling sick.

“The remains of people lost in the veil,” Rose told him, her simple tone betraying the disgust and pity in her eyes. “Not everyone is as lucky as us. Not everyone has a Knight of Time to look after them on the Other Side.”

Karkat was going to throw up. “And this helps Dave how?” he asked. 

“The key to helping Dave is two part,” Rose said, looking uncomfortable. “We can either figure out how to fix him, or we can help him to pass on so that he’s no longer stuck in between the worlds.”

“Fuck no,” Karkat said at once, rejecting the idea. “So how do we fix him?”

Rose gave him a sad look. “If I knew that,” she said. “I’d have done it over a year ago.”

 

**Day 100.**  
It was Saturday and Dave was throwing acorns at Karkat’s bedroom window. 

Karkat ripped the curtains back at the repetitive clinking noise, growing irritated, expecting to see John’s smirking face, and was instead greeted by the sight of his not-dead friend standing in the ankle-deep grass of the uncut side yard. 

Karkat quickly undid the window latch and stuck his head out. “What are you doing here?” He hissed. 

“I’m kidnapping you!” Dave told him happily, flicking another corn upwards from beneath the live oak. His eyes were bare today, and they glowed a soft red. “Come down, and bring your backpack.”

Karkat looked around and saw Dirk idling in a rusted convertible by the road. He didn’t hesitate or wonder how the fuck Dirk had found out where he lived. 

“Dad,” Karkat called out as he raced down the stars, pulling his backpack onto his shoulders as he passed the coat rack. “I’m going out!”

“Have fun!” Dad called back from somewhere inside of the house. “Don’t stay out too late!”

Karkat slammed the door behind him. Dirk waved from the road as Karkat trudged across his yard to the idling vehicle. 

Dave appeared in the backseat as Karkat pulled open the passenger door. 

“This is the weakest kidnapping scheme ever,” Karkat announced, closing the door behind him.

Dirk revved the engine, which growled eagerly under him. “I don’t know,” he said, joking for the first time Karkat had seen. “It did get you in the car with us.”

“Score one for the kidnappers,” Dave said victoriously, marking an invisible tally board with his index finger. 

The sunlight poured into the convertible. The roof might have been up but there was precious little shade in the car. “What’s this about?” Karkat asked, trying not to melt into the cracked leather seats.

Dirk shrugged and pulled away from the curb. “Now that you’re initiated into the circle, its time you knew the truth.”

Karkat swallowed thickly. “You know about that?”

“Of course,” Dirk said, huffing. “Rose would not shut up about it.” He shot a heart-breakingly fond look at his brother in the back seat. “Neither would Dave, for that matter.”

Dave stuck his tongue out a Dirk. “Like you wouldn’t equally excited at finding another Prince or Heart-aligned.”

Dirk snorted, grinning, the normally melancholy expression he wore vanished like mist in the early morning sunlight. 

“I still don’t get what this all means,” Karkat said as they drove outside the city limits. He didn’t ask where they were going. “Its circles within circles.”

“The circle is just the coven,” Dirk said, shrugging as he raced along a single-lane highway that twisted its way through the trees. “Alone, we’re powerless. Together…”

“We can wreck some shit,” Dave finished smugly, tapping out a drum rhythm on the back of Karkat’s seat. 

Dave and Dirk seemed to be in high spirits. Their mood was infectious as the radio blasted out songs he’d never heard before, each one pounding away at his heart as they left the town behind them. Dirk rolled the windows down in lieu of air conditioner and the wind wove its fingers through Karkat’s hair. 

They drove through the backwoods for a half hour, heading north to where the next closest town was. This place wasn’t much bigger than Karkat’s new home, but it sported some accessories that his own new town didn’t, like a shopping center, a Walmart, and a small football stadium.

It was still a surprise when Dirk put on his blinker and pulled into the small county hospital. 

Abruptly the good mood shifted as Dirk’s face soured. “We’re here,” he said, cutting off the engine. 

The three of them sat in silence for a moment. Out of all the possibilities that had crossed Karkat’s mind about Dave, this one had been near the top of the list. That didn’t mean that he was ready to have that theory proven. 

“Let’s go,” Dirk said, opening the door. 

Karkat followed after the two brothers, one visible, one invisible. They’d parked close to the door, which opened automatically for them into a visitor’s center.

“Dirk Strider,” the secretary on duty called out to Dirk by name, waving. “Right on time, as always.”

Karkat’s skin was crawling as Dirk approached the desk to sign in. “Yeah,” he said, his hands in his pockets. “And I brought a friend.”

The secretary squinted at him. “He’ll have to sign in too.”

“I’d like to have his name added to the visitation list,” Dirk clarified, nodding at Karkat. 

The woman blinked with surprise. “Oh,” she said, fumbling for the correct form. “Of course. Just fill this out for me dearie and y’all can be on your way.”

Dirk finished the form quickly, shoving the paper at Karkat, who dutifully signed his name to the paper. 

“There y’all go,” the woman said, handing Dirk a key. “Just let me know if you need help with anything.”

“We will,” Dirk promised as he turned away. 

Karkat followed after him as Dirk wound his way through the tangled halls with ease. He clearly knew exactly where he was going as he entered a wing of the hospital devoted to hospice care. 

“It’s not much,” Dirk told Karkat, unlocking a plain, unmarked door. “But it’s the best place for him.”

Inside the room was a single white bed. Machines beeped and croaked around the central figure who lay motionless on top of the thin mattress, lovingly tucked in.

Karkat approached the bed with trepidation, knowing what he’d see before he caught sight of Dave’s peacefully sleeping face. 

“Yeah, “The ghost Dave said from the corner of the room, his voice oddly flat and distant. “That’s me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long chapter that has a lot of things going on in it. I'm in love with this story! Also, slight cliffhanger, but it had to happen.


	4. Like Fire on Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter up early because my life will be crazy for the next few days and i won't be able to get online for a while

**Day 100**  
The Dave in the bed was hooked up to numerous machines that beeped and whistled. A heart monitor showed the even, steady pulse of his heart.

“I’ll leave you two to it,” Dirk said, his voice shaking as he quit the room. The gentle slam of the door was a whisper over the beeping of the monitors. 

Karkat approached the bed, drifting closer to his sleeping friend. 

“Are you surprised?” Dave asked from the corner of the room, leaning back with one shoulder against the wall. 

“No,” Karkat said, staring at Dave’s slack face. “I’d guessed.”

“Ah,” Dave huffed, fidgeting. “Dirk comes in here once a week to check in on me to make sure I’m not wasting away or some shit. I don’t know what he expects to find because I’m always exactly the same.”

“Coma?” Karkat forced himself to ask. His own voice sounded small. 

“I’m legally one step above a vegetable,” Dave admitted, tapping his finger against the wall. “There’s just enough brain activity left for them to classify me as non-vegetative.”

Sunlight streamed in through the curtains over the window and turned Dave’s pale hair white in the light. He looked to be only sleeping, but there was an awful stillness to him that was unnerving. 

“The doctors don’t think I’ll ever wake up,” Dave continued on tonelessly. “They gave me a less than 5% chance of recovery.”

Karkat tore his eyes off of the sleeping body to stare at the other Dave in the room. “How?” Was all he asked.

Dave swallowed thickly. “I tried to kill my father,” he said, staring directly at Karkat. He looked away. “I fucked it up though, and he took a baseball bat to my head for it.”

“Why?” Karkat asked, sensing a story behind it. 

Dave shrugged helplessly. “Bro found out about Jake and tried to kill Dirk for it.”

“Jake?” Karkat questioned. 

“Dirk’s boyfriend,” Dave clarified. “He doesn’t live here. They kept it secret but somehow Bro found out.”

Karkat felt his stomach drop to his feet. Fuck. 

Dave continued tonelessly. “I walked in on Bro beating Dirk to within an inch of his life. He was hospitalized for days afterwards with like five broken ribs, but he was fighting back, you know? I couldn’t just fuckin’ stand there—I had to help him.” Dave put his hands in his pockets and shrugged, gazing sadly at his sleeping body. “It didn’t work out so well for me. I think I got in one hit before he took the bat to me. I’m not sure. Everything goes all fuzzy after that, and then I woke up like this, right here in the hospital beside Dirk.”

“Dave,” Karkat said, his voice trembling.

“Don’t,” Dave interrupted, turning away. “I’ve heard it all by now. Bro was a piece of shit long before this happened. He beat the shit out of us on the daily.”

“What happened after that?” Karkat asked, remembering all of the wounds that Dave cycled through and knowing for the first time how he’d gotten them. His heart felt tight. 

Dave shrugged. “Dirk somehow managed to knock out Bro while he was too busy killing me to keep his guard up. He then called 911 and the medics had to life flight me to the huge state hospital up in Prospit. They transferred me down here when it became clear that I wasn’t going to wake up.”

“And Dirk?” Karkat asked, fearing the answer. 

“Dirk just turned seventeen,” Dave answered. “He’s emancipated now and my solo legal guardian.” Dust motes danced in the air around Dave, forming a golden halo around his head. “Dirk’s had a rough time with all of this. I used to think that me hanging around made things easier on him, now I’m not so sure.”

“What do you mean?” Karkat asked. 

“You wouldn’t know this because you only met Dirk and John and everyone after the accident,” Dave told him, sighing. “But everyone used to be happier. They used to laugh and smile and mean it. Now they look at me and all I can do is remind them of every time they failed to fix this. I’m wearing them down and I _can’t fuckin stand it_.”

At the words the lights overhead flickered. The frightful glow in Dave’s eyes settled back down and he looked guilty. 

“Did you do that?” Karkat asked, motioning upward at the faint overhead lights. 

“I think so,” Dave admitted. “Shit like that happens sometimes when I get upset.”

Together they gazed at Dave’s body. Karkat didn’t know what to say. His heart was tangled up around everything that he was feeling that got twisted up inside of him so that nothing came out. 

“Why’d you bring me here?” Karkat asked. He could have heard this story without the visual of Dave lying comatose before him like a puppet with its string cut. 

“Rose thought that seeing me would help you understand,” Dave told him. “She thinks you’re the key to waking me up.”

“How?” Karkat asked, turning back to face him, desperate for answers. If there was a way, he’d do it. Anything. 

“I don’t know what she’s thinking,” Dave admitted. “It’s just a fluke that you happen to be a Knight or Blood or whatever the fuck reason makes you able to see and hear me. It’s unfair to you to ask this, especially when I don’t think I’m ever going to wake up.”

“Why not?” Karkat asked, arguing, still searching for any way that might lead to waking Dave. 

“Brain damage mostly,” Dave said frankly. “And my neck was broken. Spine too. Most of my ribs went into my fuckin’ lungs. There’s not a bone in my torso that bastard didn’t shatter.”

Karkat gazed back at the body on the bed. A year was a long time to heal all of the damage that had been done to him. Now the only whisper of something wrong were the silver scars that traced their way across his skin, so fucking many of them that Karkat lost count of them all. 

“It’s a miracle that I lived at all,” Dave continued. “Sometimes I wondered if I wasn’t supposed too and that’s why I’m stuck between alive and dead. Like, I was supposed to die that day and everything that happened after is just me being too fuckin’ stubborn to admit it.”

“That’s not true,” Karkat argued. “Dave, I might not know how to help you, yet, but I do know this—you’re not supposed to be sleeping like this. You’re supposed to be here, alive, with us.”

Dave just stared at him wordlessly, his expression inscrutable. 

The door opened again and Dirk came in. “He know?” Dirk asked, shrugging at Karkat.

“I told him,” Dave nodded. 

“How you taking it?” Dirk asked him, and Karkat just felt sick to his soul. Every part of him felt sick and weary. 

“Fuck, Dirk,” he said. “How do you handle this so well?”

Dirk shrugged again. “The first time I saw Dave I thought brain damage and grief were making me hallucinate,” he said. “It took me a few weeks to accept that Dave was actually hanging around in spectral form and that I wasn’t crazy.”

Dirk crossed the floor to his sleeping brother and bent down to ruffle his hand through Dave’s pale hair. “My asshole little brother is haunting me,” he said fondly, then his face darkened. “I might deserve it for causing this mess in the first place.”

“Dirk,” Dave’s voice was a warning. “You didn’t cause this and don’t fuck with my hair. You know I can’t feel that shit and its fuckin’ weird to watch.”

“Like this?” Dirk asked, smoothening Dave’s hair back down with gentle fingers. 

“Still can’t feel shit,” Dave told him, voice hollow. “Now quit changing the subject and admit that this isn’t your fault.”

Dirk didn’t answer. “We can go now, Karkat, if you’d like.”

“Motherfucker,” Dave said, clearly angry. The lights overhead flickered again and the room felt ice-cold. 

“Easy,” Karkat cautioned, placating. 

Dave broke eye contact with his brother. “Fine,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to fuck around and unplug my own life support.”

Dirk rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “You’re not on life support, dumbass.”

Dave shot Dirk his middle finger. “Fuck you.”

“Guys,” Karkat said, rolling his eyes. “Let’s not, okay? Now I’m always one for verbal assaults, but this is a hospice unit. Show a little respect.”

“Yeah,” Dave said, egged on by Karkat, who was grinning. “Show some fucking respect. That’s my goddamn body lying there.”

Dirk looked overwrought. “Let’s just go,” he said with one last glance at Dave’s body, something unreadable in his eyes. “It’s always too quiet here.”

The only noise came from the gentle beeping of the monitor over Dave’s head. The stillness between each audible beat of his heart was unnerving. 

Karkat’s skin crawled as the surreal situation began to sink in. “Okay,” he said, and they quit the room.

It was a long, silent drive back.

 

**Day 95**  
Not much had changed since Karkat had learned the full truth about Dave. The ghost tried to hang around more, but Karkat could see the strain building in him.

Karkat was in class again, Dave oddly quiet as the teacher droned on in the background. Today his lip was spilt again, nothing but a small tear. It was one of the more common wounds he habitually wore, but the sight of it still pulled at Karkat’s heart. 

_You okay?_ He wrote on the side of his English assignment. 

Dave squinted dejectedly at the words. “Roxy couldn’t see me this morning,” he said. “It’s not the first time it’s happened, but that used to be rare. This was the fourth time this week.”

“Shit,” Karkat muttered under his breath, his heartbeat stuttering. 

“What was that, Mr. Vantas?” The teacher called him out with a scowl. 

“Nothing, sir,” Karkat replied, erasing his question to Dave to write out a single word.

_Fucker_.

Dave snorted and grinned for the first time Karkat had seen that day. 

“Thanks,” Dave told him, and then the lunch bell rang. 

Karkat stood up.

“Meet me outside,” Dave said suddenly, his voice nearly hidden under the rumble from the rest of Karkat’s classmates. “Please.”

“Fine,” Karkat said, speaking aloud as he shouldered his backpack, wading through the crowds into the openness of the hallway.

Rose met him at the cafeteria door. She glanced from him to the silent specter at his side. 

“You’re not eating with us today, are you?”

“Sorry Rose,” Dave said. “I’m kidnapping him again.”

“No, you’re avoiding Roxy,” Rose said, sighing sadly. “Dave, listen—”

“No,” Dave said, resolute. “Rose, it’s okay. We all knew this might happen.”

“No,” Rose said, shaking her head, tears glittering in her violet eyes. “Dave.”

“Its fine,” Dave said again, not looking at her. “I’ve come to terms with it.”

“Like fuck you have!” Rose burst out, drawing more than a few stares now. Her hands were in fists at her sides. “Please, just come inside with us.”

“Not today,” Dave said, drawing back from her. “I think I need some time away from them all.”

“What about Karkat?” Rose demanded hotly.

Karkat didn’t need Dave to confirm that he was the exception. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. 

Rose turned away from them, wiping at her eyes. “Fine,” she said. “But please—don’t make this a habit.”

“Are you afraid that with time away they’ll forget how to see me?” Dave challenged, his own eyes gleaming for the second they were bare before his shades took form. 

“Dave, please,” Rose began, but Dave cut her off. 

“No,” Dave said, shaking his head. “What if that’s for the best?”

“Forgetting you will never be for the best,” Rose vowed, and then she was gone, vanished inside the crowded cafeteria. 

Karkat watched her go in shock, his heartbeat pounding. 

“Dammit,” Dave swore, looking down. “I don’t light fighting with her.”

“Come on,” Karkat said, leading Dave around to the back of the building. “We need to talk.”

Dave sulked around the building until they were out of sight of the cameras. The old oaks swayed in the invisible breeze that tossed their upper limbs. Sunlight dappled the leaf litter. 

“Dave,” Karkat said. “What the fuck?”

Dave only shrugged. 

“That’s not enough,” Karkat spat back at him. “Do you want your friends to lose the ability to see you? Why aren’t you fighting this?”

Dave’s eyes flared like fire was burning behind them. “I’ve been fighting this for over a full fucking year,” he spat back, equally as angry. His hands tugged at his pale sandy hair, fighting not to tear it out. “Karkat—I know already. I fuckin’ know.”

“Then why stay away?” Karkat demanded, not understanding.

“It just hurts,” Dave admitted, broken. “I hate watching them slip away from me. I hate the idea that one day Dirk will wake up all alone in that fuckin’ house and not know I’m there. I hate the idea that one day John’s eyes will gaze right through me like I’m not really there, because it’s true. I don’t fucking exist outside of your head, Karkat.” Dave ran his fingers through his hair, distressed. “You and John, and Rose and Jade… what will happen to me when you can’t remember how to see me?”

“That won’t happen,” Karkat promised. “We can’t forget you.”

“Tell that to Jane and Roxy,” Dave said bitterly.

“I thought the Jane thing was classpect bullshit about the living?” Karkat shot back at him. 

“It might be,” Dave admitted, not sounding convinced. “But Roxy? Her classpect deals in the unseen and hidden. She out of all of them should be able to see me, so I don’t think any degree of magic is going to save my comatose ass. I’m simply fading.”

Karkat squinted at the ghost. Dave looked pretty solid to him. If Karkat hadn’t known better he would have said Dave was human. “That’s it,” Karkat declared, putting his foot down. “I’m done fucking around.”

“You are?” Dave asked, sounding scared.

“I am waking your annoying ass up if it’s the last thing I fucking do,” Karkat growled out. “Let John be right for once! I am going to wake you up.”

“How?” Dave challenged. 

Karkat stalled. “I’ll talk to Rose first,” he said, building his momentum. “Then I’ll go back to the hospital. We’ll figure something out.”

“We haven’t yet,” Dave pointed out, unconvinced. 

“That’s because I wasn’t helping before,” Karkat declared. “I sure as fuck am now.”

“Do you really think that’ll make a difference?” Dave asked him.

“It will,” Karkat said. “It has to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the shortest chapter but it has a lot of deep stuff that happens in it. Everything else will be much longer, and yes this is where the emotional shit starts. It's going to get deep, but there's always a light at the end of the tunnel.


	5. The Dog Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it hasn't been a week yet but here's the new chapter! I was too excited to wait
> 
> my loss, your gain

**Day 90.**  
Friday again. At least the football team was more subdued today after a string of losses. 

Karkat looked for Rose. The space at his side that Dave normally occupied was empty, Dave off haunting his older brother during his exams like the ghostly asshole he could be. 

He found Rose in the empty art room with Jade and Jane and Roxy. All four of the girls looked at him with suspicion as he walked in.

“Mrs. Paint’s not here,” Rose said, clearly still angry with him for siding with Dave earlier. “You’ll have to come back later.”

“I’m not here for her,” Karkat told her, rolling his eyes. “I want to speak with you, Rose.”

“Really?” Rose asked sarcastically, scrutinizing him. “About Dave, I presume?”

“Yeah,” Karkat said, his voice shortening the word into a single exclamation. 

Jane looked saddened, but Roxy looked surprisingly guilty. 

“He’s not here, is he?” Roxy asked, glancing around the empty room. 

“No,” Karkat answered. 

“How… is he?” Roxy asked slowly, gulping. “About me, I mean?”

Karkat stared at her gently. “He understands,” he told her. “He says he’s okay with it but we both know he’s lying.”

“Oh, don’t we?” Rose snarked back at him. “When did we become a we? I thought it was always us versus you until I realized it was you and Dave versus us.”

The truth hurt like a bitch, especially when Rose was throwing it in his face like this. “I never wanted that to happen,” Karkat admitted. “I don’t know why I can see Dave.”

“You’re a Knight of Blood,” Rose said, shrugging helplessly. “It makes sense.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Karkat shot back at her. “I think that you’re using magic as some kind of fucking cure all when in reality it’s done shit for Dave since you discovered it.”

Rose flinched back from the anger in his voice, but her eyes flared an unnatural shade of violet as she responded. “And how would you know?” She demanded. “You’re only part of the circle by name, not by deed.”

“I was initiated, wasn’t I?” Karkat countered. “I thought that made us buddy-buddy.”

Rose narrowed her eyes. “What do you want?”

“To ask you why you think he’s still sleeping.” Karkat considered Dave’s cousin with equally narrowed eyes. “What have you tried so far?”

“In short, everything,” Rose answered, her eyes gleaming. “Séances, summonings, binding wards, soul-magicks, even fucking ritualistic ceremonies for waking sleeping spirits.”

“He’s not a sleeping spirit,” Karkat argued as he stated the stone cold truth. “He’s awake. Out here, with us—he’s awake.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Rose asked him. “His soul is out here with us and not with his body. The two vessels have become separated.”

“So how do we conjoin the two again?” Karkat asked, desperate.

“I don’t know,” Rose told him pleading now. “Don’t you think if I had even the faintest clue I would have done something by now?”

“So what’s your plan?” Karkat demanded, throwing up his hands. “Keep fucking around with magic until someone gets hurt? Try to find some magical solution when so far magic hasn’t done shit for you?”

Rose narrowed her eyes even further. Her pupils almost looked slitted, cat-like. “Fuck you.”

“What I’m saying is true,” Karkat said, resisting the urge to tear at his hair. 

“Guys,” Roxy cautioned. “Cut it out. Now.”

“I won’t stand for infighting,” Jane stated plainly. “The circle needs to be united.”

“The circle you speak of isn’t doing shit,” Karkat nearly screamed. Why couldn’t they see that? All this time they’d been looking in the wrong place for answers and it was driving Karkat mad. “There has to be another way.”

“Like what, medicine?” Rose asked, leering down at him. “Karkat, its brain damage. There’s only so much science can do.”

“So you think diving into the arcane is a great idea?” Karkat asked, growing numb. He’d heard enough of this. 

“It is,” Rose said it like a prayer, clinging to her truth. “This will work, eventually.”

“If you hadn’t noticed,” Karkat spat back at her, waving at Jane and Roxy, knowing that he was being cruel but unable to help himself. “We don’t have the time for you to play around. We need answers now, not later.”

“Then maybe I should be asking you the questions,” Rose nearly snarled at him, and her eyes were definitely glowing, lit from behind as if by an inner flame. She was shaking with rage as she fired the words at him like bullets. “Who are you, Karkat? What are you even doing here? Why does Dave care so much about you?”

The questions hit like a hammer falling on nails, driving each one in deep till they lodged under his skin. “I don’t know,” Karkat repeated. 

“You accuse me of clinging to my false crutch,” Rose said, turning away. “But here you are, doing the exact same, Mr. I don’t know. Don’t you think that somewhere, deep down, you do?”

Karkat blinked at her, his anger cooling as if doused by cold water. Did he?

“Why is it you seven that can see him?” Karkat asked, turning the question around on her. “Why?”

Rose shrugged, still enraged. “Because we’re the ones that knew him best before Bro took him from us.”

There was such pain in her eyes that Karkat felt scaled just by looking. Roxy put her hand on Rose’s shoulder, tears slipping in well-worn trails down cheeks that had seen too many tears for her to be so young. 

“That can’t be why,” Karkat argued, lowering his voice again, calming down as his mind raced along the possibilities. “Because I never knew him.”

“Then what could it be?” Rose asked him, and Karkat thought he had an answer that burned and stuck in his throat. He couldn’t say it—couldn’t even contemplate speaking it out loud. 

His heart was pounding inside of him as he turned to go, nearly running from the girl before him that made him realize the truth he’d been trying his hardest to avoid. 

“I’ve got to go,” Karkat said, turning away. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Karkat,” Rose called out after him. “When you find out, please, let us know too. We can help. You don’t have to do this alone.”

“I know,” Karkat answered, hesitating in the doorway because Rose loved Dave too. They all did. 

And that was the first true answer Karkat found. 

 

**Day 88**  
Things seemed to hover in place for a while. Karkat didn’t move forward but took no steps back as school trudged on and on around him, losing meaning every single day. 

Karkat obsessed over finding ways to help Dave. He scraped by in school but nothing more than that, all his time spend talking with Dave or John or scrolling through the internet. Another circle meeting came and went as the moon hit its zenith and began the wane once more. 

Karkat attended Rose’s circle, skipping class yet again, but spent all his time staring at Dave, who in the circle and between the veils looked fully human. Karkat kept his mouth shut and his head down, unwilling to fight with Rose again when she had the home field advantage. 

Dave didn’t hang around afterwards to talk like he normally did. The specter vanished quickly, his eyes staring at Karkat like he was waiting for something. 

Karkat trudged on, googling different solutions every night as he researched people who’d miraculously awakened from comas. One thing seemed to stick with him as he read and reread the stories he found. 

Coma patients were supposed to be able to hear it when people talked to them. 

Karkat just had to try some experimenting of his own, so he logically went to see his father. 

Dad was lounging around his home office, a book in his calloused hands. 

“Hey, Dad?” Karkat asked, one foot behind the other and his hand stuck to the door frame. “Can I get you to drive me somewhere?”

Dad set down the book with a thoughtful expression. “Where?”

“It’s in the next town over,” Karkat replied. “Please, it’s important.”

“Well,” Dad sighed as he stood up. “If it’s important, how can I say no?”

“Thanks,” Karkat said gratefully. “I have the right address here with me.”

The drive was long and boring. It seemed to take longer than it had with Dirk, the twisting back highway developing extra loops and twists to drag out the time. They didn’t pass a single other car for the entire drive. 

“I needed to come over here soon,” Dad commented, breaking the silence as they began passing the first houses. “Grocery shopping. You can’t get everything you need at a Dollar General.”

“There’s a Walmart here,” Karkat said, seizing the opportunity presented to him. “You can shop while I do my thing.”

“And what thing is this?” Dad asked him as he took the last turn. Karkat was running out of stalling time. The hospital was right around the next bend. 

“It’s kinda hard to explain,” Karkat began, wheedling away the seconds. “Turn left here. It’s the tan building on the right.”

Dad pulled into the parking lot in silence, then said, his voice stern. “Karkat, this is a hospital.”

“Yeah,” Karkat answered. “It is.”

“Why are we here?” Dad kept his voice gentle and patient, and Karkat couldn’t help but answer. 

“I’m visiting a friend,” Karkat answered. “It’s Dirk’s brother. He lives in here.”

Dad blinked in shock, staring out the window at the building as the car idled. “Dirk Strider?” He asked. 

“Yeah,” Karkat said again, keeping his responses short as he made up a story. “Dirk always visits Dave himself on the weekends but he couldn’t today so he asked me to.”

“I heard about the Striders,” Dad muttered under his breath. “Tragic what happened to the boy.”

Karkat didn’t answer as his father contemplated the building with a thoughtful expression. 

“Are you sure you can get in to see him?” Dad asked. “There are rules for this sort of visitation.”

“I know,” Karkat answered in a rush, his heart pounding as he twisted the strap of the seat belt in his hands. “Dirk set it up for me. I’m on the list.”

“Good,” Dad said, scratching at his short beard. “I’ll be back for you when I’m done shopping then, wait for me text to come out and don’t get into any trouble, alright?”

“Alright,” Karkat answered, painful relief filling him. “Thank you.”

Dad unlocked the car doors. “Go on now, get. I’ve got shopping to do.”

Karkat snorted at his father’s bad fake country accent as he left the car. “Okay, okay, I’ll see you later,” he said. 

Karkat watched his dad pull out of the parking lot before he steeled his shoulders and went inside. He found his way to the hospice unit with ease, following the signs. 

He signed in at the help desk, seeing that Dirk had visited right on time and had already left. The lady at the desk tried to speak with him once she saw him write down Dave’s name.

“Dave,” she said, smiling. “From what I hear he was a good kid. It’s a good thing his friends still visit him, you know. So many others aren’t so lucky.”

Karkat’s guts squirmed inside of him. “I can’t forget him,” Karkat answered her, shrugging.

“God,” she said. “Don’t let yourself. It’s too easy to forget them when they’re in places like this.”

Karkat looked into her kind, wise eyes and felt a flash of ice cold air brush down his spine. “Yes mam,” he said politely, and then he left. 

Dave’s room was empty aside from the body lying still on the bed, so still. 

“Hey, Dave,” Karkat said cheerfully, not sure what he was expecting but still disappointed when nothing changed. 

And then it did. Dave’s ghost materialized across the room from Karkat, looking faintly surprised. His mouth was hanging open. 

“How the fuck did you even know I was here?” Karkat demanded as Dave just stared at him, his shades covering his face. 

“How did you do that?” Dave asked, his mouth falling shut into a thin line. 

“Do what?” Karkat asked, concerned.

“Call me,” Dave said, shaking his head as if to clear it. “I was with Dirk, then I swear I heard something—you.”

Karkat felt uncomfortable underneath the specter’s piercing red gaze. “I don’t have any answers for you,” he said. 

“Then why are you here?” Dave asked, nodding at himself on the bed. “As you can see, I’m fine, so why the secret visit?”

Karkat pulled a book out of his backpack, feeling his ears burn with embarrassment. “I was going to read to you,” he admitted, showing the book in his hands. “I read somewhere that talking to coma patients is good for them.”

Dave squinted at the title and snorted. “Watership Down?” he asked, incredulous. “Isn’t that about, like, rabbits?”

“Shut up,” Karat snapped. “It’s one of the only non-schoolbooks I own, so shut it.”

“By all means,” Dave said, waving at the body. “Lead the way, Knight of Blood.”

Karkat shivered at the words as he stubbornly pulled up a chair and cleared his throat. “The primroses were over,” he began, his lips shaping familiar words that he’d memorized years ago. He read the first few paragraphs until Dave interrupted, shaking his head. 

“I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish,” Dave admitted. “This seems kind of pointless.”

“Just focus on my voice,” Karkat instructed him. “Listen to me. Hear me.”

“I think I already did,” Dave answered silently, and Karkat gaped at him. 

“What?”

“I think I heard you, before,” Dave said slowly. “That’s what let me know you were here. I heard you, I must have.”

Karkat stared at Dave’s body, completely moved. There was a lump in his throat that it hurt to read past as he continued the story, not daring to hope. 

Karkat finished the first chapter and Dave shivered. “What is it?” He asked. 

“Don’t stop,” Dave said, his hands in fists at his sides. “Keep reading.”

Karkat dropped his eyes back down to the page, letting the melodic flow of the words carry him. 

“I can hear you,” Dave said, his voice tight with wonder. “Karkat, I think I can hear you.”

Karkat broke off mid-sentence. “How can you be sure?”

“I can hear you in my ears,” Dave said, pointing to the body on the bed. “Those ears. My ears.” He shivered again, a full-body shake. “I think I can feel it.”

“You can?” Karkat asked, his heart giving a painful squeeze of hope.

“I’m not sure,” Dave admitted, staring at Karkat with wonder. “It’s been a year since I’ve felt anything. I might not be remembering the feeling right.”

“Don’t try to remember,” Karkat said, dipping his voice back into the words of the story. “Just listen to me. Follow my voice.”

Dave took off his shades and hooked them into the neckline of his battered red and white shirt, listening intently, his eyes burning. 

Karkat continued to read, focusing on making the story come to life with his tongue, giving each syllable its own breath beneath the lull and flow of the words.

Dave blinked, his mouth agape. “I _am_ hearing you,” he decided, his face splitting into a blinding grin. “Karkat— _I can hear you_!” He let out a breathless laugh of sheer incredulous joy.

Karkat broke off the flow of words to laugh with him, sharing the joy, his heart soaring with victory. “Can you still hear me?” He asked, his mind racing. 

“Yes,” Dave nodded enthusiastically, smiling. “Damn, it’s like some switch was flipped. I can hear you now, like, your voice, talking to me.” Dave stared at himself on the bed, his eyes wide. “Do you know what this means?”

“No,” Karkat admitted, feeling high with the victory but not knowing where to take his next step, or what that step should be. He had no map to go by, only his intuition which had just won him a huge step forward.

“It means we need to tell Rose immediately,” Dave said, nearly vibrating with excitement. His expression was s light, so open, so cheerfully happy that it made Karkat’s heart hurt. 

He’d never wanted to touch Dave so badly before, to celebrate, to feel his skin, to simply reach out and touch him and not have his hand go through thin air as if Dave were made of something less substantial than fog. 

But Karkat couldn’t dare try, not when he knew that it wouldn’t work. He couldn’t touch Dave, he knew that, but then his eyes strayed to the body on the bed as he remembered the loving way that Dirk had smoothened down that pale hair. 

Dave was still laughing to himself and Karkat’s heart was pounding, sending a rush of thick blood through his system. “Hey, Dave?” He asked, and his own voice sounded weird to his ears. “Can I touch your hand?”

Dave stopped laughing, his eyes focusing on Karkat with frightening intensity. It was like the ghost saw right through Karkat. “Sure,” he said, shrugging. “Go ahead, just know that I can’t feel anything that happens to me. Like, the nurses come in here eight times a day to stick me with needles and I never feel shit.” 

“They stick you with needles?” Karkat asked, somewhat curious. 

Dave shrugged again, somewhat subdued. “I’m on a few anti-seizure meds,” he explained. “Apparently there’s a risk of seizing to death with brain damage like mine, so I’m on some special meds that are supposed to reduce the risk of that happening.”

“Oh,” Karkat asked, his voice small. 

“Yeah,” Dave nodded, before his eyes flickered away, to the window. “It’s not bad or anything, just—”

Karkat bent down and lightly brushed the tips of his fingers over the back of Dave’s hand where it rested limply on top of the sheets. Dave’s hand was cool beneath his gentle touch. 

“Shit!” Dave cursed, whipping around as Karkat snatched his hand away like he’d been scalded. 

“What is it?” Karkat asked, concerned and guilty. 

Dave blinked at him slowly as his edged wavered. “Do that again,” he ordered, his voice a dry rasp. 

“What, this?” Karkat asked, bending down to tap at the back of Dave’s hand again.

The ghost shuddered, his eyes flickering closed. “I felt that,” he said, opening his eyes to stare at his ghostly hand. He clenched it into a fist. “I know I felt that.” 

Before Karkat could say or do anything, Dave spun around so that his back faced Karkat. “Touch me somewhere else,” Dave said. “Not the hand. I’ll try to guess where.”

Shocked, Karkat gave in and quickly trailed his fingers up the back of Dave’s thin wrist. 

“Wrist,” Dave said at once, turning around with his eyes still resolutely closed. “I knew I could feel you,” he muttered. His gorgeous red eyes opened again and stared directly into Karkat’s soul. “Why do you do this to me?” He asked softly as behind him, the heart monitor broke its simply rhythm to glitch as Dave’s heart began to beat faster with Karkat’s hand still on his arm. “Why you?”

The answer hung on the tip of Karkat’s tongue. He’d realized this days ago but hadn’t dared to say the word out loud, and he wasn’t about to say it now. “I’m not sure,” he lied. 

Dave took it for the truth and Karkat felt the guilt consume him. “Then we’ll have to find out,” Dave swore. 

 

**Day 87**  
Karkat met Rose the next day at school and immediately drug her into the art room. Mrs. Paint was there organizing her colors, but the teacher paid them no mind as Dave flickered into existence beside them. 

“What’s going on?” Rose asked, whispering furiously a Karkat and Dave eyed each other like kids with a secret.

Dave was grinning wildly. “Tell her,” he said, excited. 

Karkat rolled his eyes but couldn’t hold back his own smile. “I went to see Dave in the hospital Sunday.”

Rose looked taken back in shock, but she was interested all the same. “And?”

“And I read out loud to him,” Karkat said, explaining. “I heard that talking to coma patients is good for them.”

“And?” Rose said, growing irritated. 

“And he heard me,” Karkat said simply, his tone belittling the amount of feeling he felt behind the words. 

Rose froze, going very still. “You what?” she said, turning to Dave. 

“I heard him,” Dave said, nearly bursting with excitement. “With my actual real ears and everything. I was home with Dirk, and then I heard him call out to me.”

Rose had flushed pale, her violet eyes were wide as she all but whispered. “You heard him?”

“That’s not all,” Karkat said quickly, trying to get the whole story out. “When I touched his hand, he could feel that too.”

“Even better than that,” Dave continued, grinning stupidly. “When he touched me, my heart started beating faster. I could hear it increase over the monitor. You see, Rose?” Dave asked excitedly. “Karkat caused a physical reaction in me—the first I’ve had since the accident.”

“But,” Rose stammered, “Reading? It can’t be that simple. We’ve spent hours talking over Dave’s body and nothing worked then.”

“I might be different,” Karkat said, Dave’s excitement contagious. “That’s what John thinks anyway. Maybe he’s actually right.”

Rose’s eyes sharped, focusing on Karkat. “You,” she said. “The boy who can see Dave when he has no logical right to, and now Dave can hear and feel you.”

“I guess,” Karkat said weakly, feeling like Rose could see right through him and his thin disguise. 

Rose looked back to Dave, a slow smile spreading across her face as she contemplated the news. “This is great,” she said, her voice hushed. “This is the first breakthrough we’ve had all year. Dave, I’ll question you extensively about this later but for now I’ll restrain myself. Karkat,” She said, turning her gaze back to him. “Do you know what Dave is?”

The unexpected question threw Karkat off guard. “What?”

“We call him a ghost, but that’s not really what he is, is it?” Rose said haughtily. “Ghosts are the lingering spirits of the deceased and he’s still technically alive. What Dave is can be known as a shade, a soul-imprint left behind on the world, existing between the veil and the mortal plane.”

“So?” Karkat asked, not getting it.

Rose’s eyes gleamed. “So Dave can hear you,” she said. “And that means I might have a plan…”

 

**Day 86**  
It turned out that Rose’s plans were never good, because the next day Karkat was drug back outside to the gym out back as soon as he set foot off the bus. 

The gym was twice as dusty as before, the air thick with pollen even at the end of September. The cobwebs in the corners were full of it, a thick, smeary yellow that dusted all flat surfaces. 

“Why are we back here again?” Karkat complained loudly as Rose lugged the door back into place. “It’s not the full moon.”

The room was empty. John and the other’s weren’t there. Not even Dave was there. It was kind of creepy to be back here all alone without the warmth of the others to offset the dark silhouettes of the abandoned equipment. 

“Because,” Rose deadpanned. “I am going to teach you how to use magic.”

Karkat gulped, instinctive fear filling him. “I thought you couldn’t use magic outside of the circle?” it was a weak defense, but it was all he had. 

“That’s only mostly true,” Rose admitted. “We draw our power from each other, but each of us can manage a few small things on our own.” She bend down to her bag and lifted up a match with then lit itself and burned with a steady glow.

“Neat parlor trick,” Karkat commented bitterly. “I don’t trust your magic.”

“Because you are afraid, or because you think it’s unnecessary?” Rose asked. 

“Both,” Karkat answered stubbornly. “I think playing with magic is just asking for someone to get hurt.”

“No one is getting hurt,” Rose promptly reminded him. “We do this to help Dave.”

“You don’t need to convince me,” Karkat said, sitting cross-legged on the floor as he gave in, memories of Horrorterror screams ringing in his ears. “What do I need to do?”

“There is a legend,” Rose began, sitting beside him as she extinguished the match as it burnt down to her fingertips. “Shades are innate beings of mystery, existing outside of their physical bodies and stuck between the worlds. Stuck in time, if you will.”

“And?” Karkat asked, growing curious as he settled his chin on his interlocked hands beneath his chin. 

“So the theory is that we need something that can simply unstick them,” Rose said, squinting at him. “Or, perhaps more importantly, someone.”

“And you know this how?” Karkat asked, feeling his face flush hot. 

“Because there’s a legend of one other shade that was healed,” Rose answered seriously. “That shade was called back to life by the one who loved them most.”

Karkat bit his tongue, hard, fighting to keep his face neutral. 

Rose studied him with violet eyes that saw far too much. “You know why you can see Dave, don’t you?”

“Maybe,” Karkat said evasively. 

“I know why John and I can see him,” Rose answered back sadly. “Same reason why Roxy and the rest can too. It’s because we loved him while he was alive, and even now we keep on loving him.”

He knew that. Karkat knew that. “Then what does that say about me?” Karkat challenged, locking eyes with her. “Are you saying that I love him?”

The words echoed between them, bouncing around the great dark room they were in, the awful truth Karkat was trying to avoid.

“How can you not?” Rose shot right back at him. “You’ve known him since the school year began. You out of all of us know Dave the best—doesn’t that count for something?”

“So I’m some dumb motherfucker who was shitty enough to fall in love with a coma patient he’s only met twice for a grand total of maybe two hours?” Karkat snapped, feeling the mounting stress he’d been trying his best to avoid come crashing down over him. “Don’t you realize how crazy and fucked up that sounds?”

“It does sound crazy,” Rose admitted, not looking away. “But how much more insane is it that I regularly hallucinate my comatose cousin and even hold conversations with the said illusion?”

Karkat looked at her then, neither one breaking eye contact, and he started laughing. Rose joined in, the sound of their laughter echoing off the tin ceiling as he clutched at his sides with incredulous mirth. 

“This is fucked up,” he said, sobering up as he chortled. “We’re both fucked up.”

“Very,” Rose agreed, pushing her choppy hair back behind her headband. “Now let’s get to work.”

“What do you want me to do?” Karkat asked, growing serious. Magic. He was about to learn real, actual magic.

“You are a Knight of Blood,” Rose said, pulling a long page of notes out of her bag. “Since traditionally Blood and Breath are the leaders, I’m guessing your skill with speaking to Dave lies in authority, strengthened by your shared class. It’s a workable hypothesis for now.”

Karkat understood almost nothing of what was said. “And that means,” he trailed off, guessing. 

Rose snapped her notepad shut with a grin. “It means we’re going to practice summoning,” she said smugly. “Call Dave to you.”

“What?” Karkat asked.

“Call Dave to you,” Rose repeated. “I instructed him via Dirk to stay home today, and I want you to summon the shade to your side using your voice, since that’s the thing that affects Dave’s spectral form.”

“It wasn’t my voice that did it,” Karkat immediately complained, not liking the idea of summoning Dave using some kind of magic spell. “It was my hand on his arm that made his heart beat faster.”

“But your voice that called him there in the first place,” Rose reminded him promptly. “Now call Dave.” Her tone booked no argument. She was deadly serious and on the trail of her first lead in a year—Karkat wasn’t going to wiggle away that easily. 

Feeling stupid and not sure what Rose expected of him, Karkat tentatively called out to the empty room. “Dave?” The question echoed in the silence. 

Absolutely nothing happened. 

“Again,” Rose said, “but mean it this time.”

“Dave,” Karkat tried again, schooling his voice into order. His breath shook inside deflated lungs, drawing in the dusty air. “Dave, where are you?”

There was predictably no response. 

“No,” Rose said, shaking her head. “You’ve got to use magic. You can’t just speak the words into the empty air and expect him to appear. You’ve got to call him to you.”

“And how the fuck do I do that?” Karkat snapped, his hands in frustrated fists. 

Rose spoke patiently, as if she were speaking to a child. “Speak your will into existence,” she instructed. “Don’t let reality decide what’s possible—that’s for you to do. Reach deep inside yourself and find that hidden place of power that reacts when you hear the words Knight of Blood.”

Karkat shivered at the tone, the words inked inside his soul.

Rose continued as Karkat closed his eyes, seeking that shiver in his core. “Knight of Blood,” she said, her voice gaining intensity. “Find yourself, Karkat Vantas. Know who and what you are.”

“Dave,” Karkat tried again, exhaling. “Dave, get your ass over here.” There was nothing, that hidden place he’d glimpsed slipping away again. Karkat grabbed at it but it fell through his fingers like fine sand. “Dammit.”

Rose blinked at him. “Like this,” she said, raising her hand and focusing her gaze on her fingertips. “Light.” Light flowed across her hand, illuminating the air around them, its source unseen. It wavered like a flame, white-and-gold, then it faded away. “Speak your will into existence,” she said again. “You decide what is and isn’t possible.”

Karkat pushed at that place in his core again, not taking no for an answer as he broke through the skin of himself and fell into some bright, swirling place, a sea of hot red blood and fire. “Dave Strider,” Karkat gasped out, his tongue fizzing with the magic he cast. “Come to me.”

The words shivered with power like sparks in his mouth; he felt the heat of them against his tongue. 

Rose tilted her head, her eyes gleaming. “There you go,” she said, nodding. “That’s better.”

“Holy shit,” Karkat said, huffing out the breath he’d been holding. “I felt it, I felt that.”

“Yes,” Rose nodded. “Magic, what fun. Now try again.”

Karkat reached inside of himself again, focusing. It was easier this time now that he knew the way, and with a vision of fire and blood behind his closed eyes he tried again, forcing the words to take new meaning. “Dave,” he spoke. “Come here.”

The air thrummed with power. Even Rose looked disquieted by the strength behind it, but nothing happened. Dave did not appear. 

“I don’t get it,” Rose said, sitting back with a huff. “That should have worked.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Karkat said. “I think he needs his real ears nearby to hear me.”

“Humor me then,” Rose asked dryly. “Imagine his spirit coming to you. Mean it.”

Karkat closed his eyes. He imagined Dave as how he saw him—that red and white shirt, pale sandy hair that was just starting to fall into his eyes, that grin he had when he thought no one was looking. Karkat’s heart ached violently. He wanted Dave beside him so much in that instant that it hurt, so he plunged back into the magic and said, “Dave, I need you,” with all of the love that he could muster. 

He loved Dave; he loved him, he did, he actually really did, and with the echo of that love warming his chest Karkat looked up and made eye contact with an astonished, smug Rose, then focused behind her to stare into the red eyes that he knew he would find. 

“Sup,” Dave said, leaning back against the wall nonchalantly. “I heard that you needed me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sceaming*


	6. All the Bright Places

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter alert! Plot is coming in hot!

All the Bright Places

**Day 61**  
Once a week Karkat accompanied Dirk to the hospital to read to Dave. Sometimes Rose joined them. Sometimes it was Jade or John who accompanied Dirk when he rolled up to the curb in front of Karkat’s house in his old car with the radio blasting. 

His dad had learned not to question it. Saturdays were for Dave. 

Karkat had gotten better at calling Dave, though he didn’t do it often. Magic was hard and exhausting to use outside of the circle and, unsurprisingly, Karkat sucked at it. He couldn’t even manage the simple spells that Rose gave him for homework. He couldn’t light matches, or freeze water, and calling forth his aspect was impossible. He wasn’t the most diligent student to the arcane arts, mostly out of distrust to the subject, but he was interested in learning how to get better. 

School was out today for teacher conferences so Karkat was at home alone while his dad was at work. John sat on his bedroom rug, sprawled out sideways as they went over the English term paper that was due by the end of the week. 

“Conclusions are hard,” John drawled, his shoulders pressed into the shag rug. “Why can’t I just end it? Why drag things out for another whole paragraph? No one actually cares!”

“Fuck off,” Karkat said good-naturedly. “It’s a conclusion. It’s not that hard—just end the fucking paper. The hard part is already written.”

John stuck out his tongue. “You say fuck too much.”

“Fuck you,” Karkat shot back, and they both dissolved into laughter. 

“Just don’t say that in your essay,” John joked, surrounded by the crumpled papers and failed mis-starts of a dozen abandoned essays. “What page are you on?”

“Seven of ten,” Karkat answered, studying his laptop for any obvious typos. 

“Of ten?” John, asked, dismayed. “I thought the minimum was six pages?”

“Nope,” Karkat checked the rubric. “Ten pages at least.”

John groaned and threw himself backwards onto the rug dramatically. The movement dislodged a tidal wave of Karkat’s research materials and spilled a mass of loose papers across the floor.

“Shit!” Karkat cursed and bent down to retrieve his work with a sigh. 

John helped gather up all of the pages he’d knocked over and in doing so found the sheet of spells Rose had given him for homework. 

John studied the sheet with eager eyes before Karkat snatched it away from him.

“Rose gave you homework?” John asked curiously. 

“A little,” Karkat admitted. “Just simple stuff that I haven’t managed yet, which is all of it.”

“You can’t summon your aspect yet?” John asked, looking surprised. “That’s the easiest thing ever.”

“Like you can do it,” Karkat sneered, and John looked solemnly at him before raising his hand.

_“Breath.”_

A wind shook the room, the invisible breeze ruffling across the sea of papers and lifting them in short flight. Karkat felt its chill as the breeze passed along his skin, John’s dark hair waving in the wind he’d called forth.

A second later and the wind died back down to nothing. The papers settled back on the floor in a disorganized mess that Karkat would have to sift through to find the right documents again.

“Fuck you and fuck your easy magic,” Karkat grunted as he began to hunt down his research to finish his paper. 

John shrugged. “Summoning your aspect is like, step one.”

“I know,” Karkat said, sighing as he held pages four and eight of a ten page document. “I can’t do it.”

“It’s pretty easy for the rest of us,” John said, obviously bragging.

“Shut up, I’m new at this still,” Karkat defended himself. 

John shrugged. “Maybe it’s supposed to be harder for you,” he said, considering Karkat. “It feels different for all of us, summoning, because our aspects are different. Dirk says it’s like touching lightning for him, touching lightning and having it burn through your body till there’s nothing left but light and electricity.” John shivered. “I like mine better. It’s like gasping that first breath of fresh air after a long time underwater.” He looked at Karkat. “What does Blood feel like when you reach for it?”

“Why do you ask?” Karkat said.

“Because as Breath, we’re part of a set, you and I. I’m supposed to be your exact opposite. We oppose and balance out each other.” John said it like it was supposed to be obvious. 

Karkat thought about reaching inside himself for his aspect, that endless sea of hot red, pulsing, crushed under the weight of a responsibility he couldn’t name.

“I don’t know,” Karkat said slowly. “For me, it’s like reaching inside yourself only to find hell waiting with open fucking arms.”

John hissed in his breath, shocked. “Its supposed to be something worth embracing,” he told Karkat, looking confused. 

“Maybe I’m not ready to embrace it yet,” Karkat admitted, feeling like he could talk to John about this where with Rose he could not. 

John nodded enthusiastically. “I get it!” he said. “It was like that for a lot of us in the beginning. Part of being classpected sucks because in gaining our class and aspect we lose the person we thought we were. There’s no room for self-lies or facades after having out inner soul workings thrust upon us. It can be a lot to take in.”

“How’d you manage it?” Karkat asked curiously.

“Carefully,” John just shrugged. “You’ve got to accept yourself for who you are without anything between you and yourself. It’s just you and your aspect, for better or for worse.”

“I’ll have to try and work on that,” Karkat joked to lighten the mood. “I’ll schedule in a huge bout of self-reflection right after we finish this essay.”

“Okay, okay,” John laughed and handed Karkat the rest of the document he’ been looking for. “But I’ve just got one more question.”

“What is it?” Karkat asked, dreading it already.

John held up his fingers and ticked it off as if from a list. “You can summon Dave but not your actual aspect?” He said, confused. 

“Yes, and before you ask, I don’t know why that is.”

John blinked at him sadly. “I think that you do.”

“What?” Karkat asked, feeling his ears grow hot.

“I think that you do know the answer,” John said simply. “It’s not that hard to figure out. You have these little pink hearts floating in your eyes every time you look at him.”

“Fuck off!” Karkat said, panicked as he hurriedly glanced around the room to make sure Dave wasn’t lurking anywhere, listening. 

John just laughed at him. “Karkat, calm down. It’s okay.”

“Not it’s not,” Karkat fretted worriedly. “I can’t be in love with him—I can’t be.” It was the first time he’d said the word aloud, and hearing it confirmed how crazy things sounded. Anxiety filled him and he felt like he was going to throw up. 

“Karkat—it’s okay.” John looked at him encouragingly. “It’s okay to feel gay for Dave.”

“That’s not why I’m freaking out,” Karkat snapped back at him viciously, the immediately felt bad about the hostility. John didn’t deserve that, not from him, not when he was only trying to help. 

“Then why the freak out?” John asked frankly. 

“It’s,” Karkat started, then broke off. What was there to say, and how could he string the right words together for long enough to say it? “If I love him, do you think that changes anything?” Karkat asked, voicing his biggest insecurity about the entire situation. “Like, I love him, okay? I love him so fucking much and so far it’s done jack shit to help him.” As a matter of fact, the only benefit Karkat saw about loving Dave was getting a front row seat to the inevitable collapse of everything he held dear. This wasn’t something stable. Dave’s condition was never one meant to last. 

And that fact broke his heart, so he wrapped it up tight and refused to let the feeling foster itself in his heart to protect himself from the future wound he could feel coming from a mile away. That was common sense. 

John didn’t seem to think that. “So?” He asked, rolling his eyes. “It’s not like not loving him would make your task any easier.”

“What fucking task?” Karkat asked, confused.

“Waking him up,” John confirmed. “That’s up to you, Karkat. Only you can wake him.”

“How can you even say that?” Karkat hissed, instantly pissed off. “That’s bullshit! _Bullshit_!”

“Easy,” John tried to calm him. “Haven’t you thought about why you could see him from day one?”

The question put a stopper in Karkat’s anger as he contemplated his reply. 

“Haven’t you ever thought of why you fell in love so easily with the idea of him alone?” John asked gently. “You didn’t even need to see him in person to love him. You didn’t need to be able to feel or touch him—you only needed to be able to look at the shade of his soul and part of you just knew.”

Karkat wanted to deny the words but he couldn’t, not when John, damn him eternally, was making sense.

John looked at him, his gaze steady. “I knew from that first day that you’d fall for him,” he confided in Karkat. “And then I got to know you and knew that Dave would fall for you right back.”

“How can you be so sure?” Karkat asked, voicing his biggest fear. Dave was under no obligation to ever love him back. What if the ghost just didn’t feel the same way in return?

“Why is it that you can summon him?” John asked logically. “You can always call on him with your magic, but it’s Dave that decides whether or not to answer you. He’s not once ignored you yet.”

“So?” Karkat asked, frantic for any other explanation. 

John stared at him with kind eyes, eyes the exact shade of the sky outside. “I’ve known Dave all my life,” he said. “I know him as well as the back of my hand. I know how he acts when he’s found someone worthy of his attention.”

Was that all Karkat was? Someone worthy of his attention, however fleeting that may be?

Karkat felt depressed at the thought. He bend back down and picked up another paper from the floor, dejected. “Let’s just focus on the essay,” he said. “We can talk about my forlorn love life later.”

John looked disappointed but he gave in with grace and went back to typing on his laptop. “You know,” he said. “I’m always here for you. You’re one of us now. You can tell me anything.”

Karkat bit at his lip with the stress of it all. “What if I can’t do it? What if I never find out a way to wake him?”

“You will,” John said, looking back down at his paper. “I know you will.”

 

**Day 58**  
Today was one of the rare days that Dave looked untouched by violence. His face was clear, his back straight, and his walk smooth and even. Karkat knew it was an illusion but he knew better than to ask where the ghost was hurting. 

“Sup,” Dave nodded his head to Karkat with a light smile. “How was your night? Did you dream about me?” Dave fluttered his pale eyelashes and pretended to swoon at the thought. 

The harmless teasing made a rush of hot blood fill Karkat’s face and cheeks. He hadn’t been dreaming about Dave but ever since that talk with John, Karkat found it harder to control himself around Dave’s specter. Did Dave know? Was that why he was teasing? Should Karkat flirt back? Endless questions filled his head with their overwrought nonsense and distracted him from any non-Dave related thoughts. This was beginning to become a problem. 

Class began and Dave took his usual annoying place at Karkat’s side, though as distracting as the ghost could be Karkat wouldn’t have preferred it any other way. He liked knowing that Dave was watching over him. He liked feeling the ghost’s presence nearby. It chased away the loneliness that plagued Karkat’s existence. 

“So,” Dave said as Karkat tried vainly to pay attention to the class lecture. There was a quiz at the end of class; he needed to pay attention. “What was it I said earlier that made you blush?”

Karkat snapped his eyes to the ghost, then looked back at the PowerPoint slide the teacher was showing, determined not to provoke Dave.

Dave just grinned. “Oh? Did I hit a nerve?”

Karkat continued to diligently take notes. 

“It was the part about dreaming about me, wasn’t it?” Dave guessed, laughing. “Were you actually dreaming about me? Oh shit, that’s awesome. Can’t get enough, can you Karkat?”

Karkat bit down hard on his lower lip, the lightly teasing, playful words boring into him where he held his secret close to his heart. Before he could stop himself, Karkat wrote out a line to Dave on the side of his notes. 

CAN YOU KEEP IT DOWN? i'M TRYING TO PAY ATTENTION. Karkat underlined the words twice, then wrote, QUIZ LATER TODAY as an explanation.

Dave shrugged, having too much fun to shut up. “Bitches be trippin’ over me left and right. It’s all I can do not to step on all the incredulous torsos of the prostrate cloggin’ my daily walk, because not kicking little old Sally in the face is my gift to the world I fuckin’ guess, fuckin’ saint that I am.”

Karkat’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head with the effort of not laughing. He tried to unsuccessfully tune Dave’s voice out. 

The ghost continued gleefully, filling the silence with his own voice as he rambled on, unheard to all except Karkat. 

He let the ghost talk unimpeded as he copied down his notes. He loved it when Dave went off like this; there was no telling what would come out of Dave’s mouth next and the noise filled in the background quite nicely until the bell rang for lunch. 

Karkat packed up his bag and left with the flood of other students, blending into the crowd. Dave followed after him, still talking in a flood of rapid-paced words that were too strung out and convoluted to make any kind of sense, but there was a coherent plot buried somewhere beneath the bullshit if Karkat listened for it. 

“Hey, Dave,” Karkat said, his voice not sticking out in the chaos of the lunch rush. “Thanks for always helping me out in class and hanging around and stuff. It really makes class time more bearable.”

Dave cut off the flow of words with a snap, looking at Karkat in shock. “I don’t annoy you?” He asked. 

“You do,” Karkat said. “It’s okay. I like it.”

Karkat wasn’t sure if a ghost could blush, but he would have bet that’s what Dave just did. The sudden realization made a funny feeling race through Karkat’s chest, something light and fluttery. 

“Awww,” Dave said, ruining the moment as he wiped at an imaginary tear. “Shucks Karkat. I’ll have to annoy you more often then if I get such nice complements in return.”

Now it was Karkat’s time to blush. He blushed too easily, and the blood colored his face for all to see. Dave just laughed harder, full of mirth as they sat down at their usual lunch table.

“You two look like you’re having fun,” Jade said, pulling the mangled crust away from her sandwich. 

“I think we are,” Dave said, smiling. “I’m having a good day today, Jade. I have Karkat to thank for that, I guess.”

John shot Karkat a very knowing look that made Karkat visualize strangling the smug motherfucker with a shoelace. 

“Hey, Davey,” Roxy said, sliding into her seat too fast and nearly colliding with John. “How’s it hangin’?”

“Good enough,” Dave answered brightly, grinning at her. Karkat hadn’t seen him smile this much before. The expression lit up the ghost’s entire face, his protective shades nowhere to be seen. 

When Jane sat down across from Dave she didn’t need to squint and strain to see him. Apparently today Dave was glowing brightly enough for everyone to see. “Dave,” Jane said softly. “It’s good to see you.”

“You as well,” Dave answered gently.

John threw a piece of toast at Dave. The bread went right through him much to John’s amusement. Even Rose laughed at that as Dirk looked around to make sure no one else was paying attention to them.  
Karkat sat back and listened as Dave laughed and joked with his friends, and for a single shining second it was like Dave was actually here with them at the table, and the knowledge that he wasn’t tore at Karkat in all the worst possible ways until his lunch turned sour inside him. He felt like he was going to throw up.

This was everything he wanted, Dave here with them, but this moment right here was a lie, it was nothing but illusion, much like Dave’s uninjured façade today because Karkat could make out the bruises at his wrists that his sleeves didn’t quite hide. Dave wasn’t here, not really. His body was sleeping in a hospital miles away as his shade drifted around, brushing up against the living in odd ways that reflected life like a still pool of dark water. 

The feeling crushed Karkat utterly. He didn’t feel like laughing anymore.

“Karkat?” Rose asked him. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Karkat lied. 

Rose looked at him like she saw right through him, but she let the lie slide as lunch continued on, Karkat the only one sitting there daydreaming about the day that John could throw toast at Dave and not have it go through his body like fog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually the shortest chapter of the entire thing, but hey. Pacing. It's a thing that exists. 
> 
>  
> 
> also known as 'how much foreshadowing can I cram into a single chapter?'


	7. Beats on Fire like the Holy Ghost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter! Now we're getting into the story! ;)
> 
> Note: this chapter title comes from an unfinished fic by the same name that I love

**Day 50**  
Karkat was dreaming about Dave. It didn’t feel like a normal dream. They were in the woods, for one, somewhere dark and thick with trees that Karkat didn’t know. He wasn’t one to wonder in random forests, so finding himself alone in the dark trees was unnerving. There was a thick layer of fog on the ground, obscuring the leaf litter. 

“Dave?” He called out, instinctively knowing that that ghost was nearby. “Dave, where are you?”

Dave stepped out from behind a tree. There was something dark and sticky covering his face, which he kept turned away from Karkat like he was trying to hide the evidence. 

“Dave,” Karkat said in the dream. He stopped across from the specter, feeling the hairs raise along his arms. 

“I thought you said you’d help me,” The dream Dave accused, sounding bitter and heartbroken. His voice eerily echoed through the trees, seeming to come from all sides. 

“What?” Karkat replied. “How? Dave, how do I help you?” He pleaded with the dream Dave, recognizing the blood for what it was as it dripped tacky from Dave’s eyes. It gleamed wetly in the non-light.

“You said you’d help me,” Dave said again, sounding like a broken record. He seemed small and birdlike, something easily startled into vanishing forever but right on the brink of wall-eyed terror, any sudden movement away from exploding into violence. 

This Dave was dangerous. This wasn’t the grinning ghost that haunted Karkat’s waking hours. This was a different specter, something lost and broken and hurting. This was Dave with his mask gone. This shade wanted with a hunger that took Karkat’s breath away. 

“Help me,” Dave pleaded, his arms outstretched to Karkat. Blood dripped from him in a dark flood. 

Karkat took a step back, his heart pounding with fear. 

Dave took a step forward, stumbling. “ _Help me._ ”

Karkat felt a tree at his back as the specter stumbled forward at him, leaking out his life in a great flood of dark red. “Help.”

Right before the spirit’s bloodied fingers touched him, Karkat woke up gasping, his hands clawing at the blankets around him as his frantic eyes found the illuminated alarm clock by his bed. 4:13 am. 

His heart was racing inside his chest. It felt like he’d been running a marathon and his skin was damp with a light sheen of sweat. 

Karkat closed his eyes to help steady his shaking breathing but instead saw nothing but the darkness of his own pulse against the backs of his eyeballs. He opened his eyes again, taking in the familiar shadows of his room. It felt like something was watching him. 

He flicked on the lights. There was no one there. His room was empty. That didn’t make him feel any better.

Karkat pulled the blankets up to his chin. What the fuck was that?

It was clear that he wasn’t getting any more sleep tonight, not after that dreaming monstrosity. He was never sleeping again. 

The knowledge of what he needed to do pounded away inside him. He needed to talk to Dave. 

He cut his eyes at the early hour displayed on his clock again, but then rationalized that as a ghost Dave didn’t need sleep like a human would, so he resolved to summon the ghost to him.

Karkat reached deep inside himself, grabbing for a place made of blood and heat until he saw red behind his eyes, and then he said, “Dave, get over here. Please.”

It only took a few seconds after he let the magic fade for Dave to step into the room. The ghost regarded him curiously, looking around Karkat’s bedroom with interest. “This is new,” he said. “You’ve never summoned me outside of school or Rose’s practices. Nice room, by the way.”

Crippling relief filled Karkat at the sound of Dave’s easy banter, nothing like the toneless screech of the dream Dave. 

“Something’s wrong,” Dave guessed shrewdly, staring at him. “Why do you look like you just finished throwing up your small intestine?”

“That’s what it feels like I just did,” Karkat admitted. “I have a dream. Nightmare really.”

“Oh,” Dave said, sounding surprised as he leaned back against the door. “And you called me?” He seemed touched by the notion. 

“It was about you,” Karkat explained. “It was like you were really there.”

“As flattered as I am that you were dreaming about me,” Dave said, “hearing it was a nightmare does not bode well for my fragile ego.”

The joke was a welcome distraction. It gave Karkat the opportunity to calm his breathing a little more so his voice didn’t shake when he said, “I dreamed about you. We were in the woods and you were bleeding and—” the confession tumbled out of him. “And you were begging me to help you.”

Dave just stared at him. His shades covered his eyes. “What did I say?”

“You asked me to help you, again and again,” Karkat said. “You were falling apart, bleeding out everything you had, begging me to save you, and I just fucking stood there and watched.” This was the root of the issue. Karkat hadn’t done anything. He’d just stood there helplessly as the dream Dave had collapsed in on himself. There’d been so much fucking blood. 

He didn’t mention the fear he’d felt or the dangerous glint in Dave’s frantic eyes. 

“It seemed so real,” Karkat said, shaking his head. “I thought… I thought for a second that you used some kind of magic to walk in my dreams.”

Dave looked curious. “Time’s my aspect,” he said. “I don’t do dream shit, and since I’m not strictly alive I can’t actually do magic outside of the circle, and even then it’s strictly Knight shit.”

“Really?” Karkat asked, equally curious. 

“You’re not the only one who can’t summon their aspect,” Dave told him. “I don’t think this part of me, what I am, this shade, is real enough to cast magic. I’m still stuck between.”

“Oh,” Karkat said weakly. “It just felt so real.”

“I’m sorry that it was a nightmare,” Dave told him, walking closer. “If you dream of me again, I hope its happy dreams.”

Karkat looked at him.

“What?” Dave said, self-conscious. “Was that too weird?”

“No,” Karkat said, basking in Dave’s comforting presence. He felt the nightmare’s touch receding. “I think that’s just what I needed.” The admittance came from that part inside him that John had first seen on the bus that day so long ago. He felt the words in him now, _I think I’m in love with you_ , but he kept them to himself. He couldn’t tell Dave, not now, not like this.

“Mind if I…” Dave said trailing off as he motioned at the end of Karkat’s bed. 

“Not at all,” Karkat answered, feeling his face heat up as Dave sat at the foot of his bed. He felt nothing. The mattress didn’t groan, the blankets didn’t shift. There was absolutely no feeling as Dave made himself comfortable. 

Karkat sat upright again, edging closer to him. “Thank you for coming,” he said. “I was really freaked out earlier.” He meant it. Just talking to Dave had calmed him down and soothed his rattled nerves.  
“I could tell,” Dave said. “When you called, me, I could feel your anxiety.”

“You could?” Karkat asked, surprised. “Is that why you answered me?”

“I think that I will always answer you,” Dave said, and Karkat’s heart soared. “But this time, I could tell that you needed me.”

Karkat’s throat felt tight. He looked down at his bed and saw Dave’s hand laying against the comforter. Knowing it was foolish and that Dave couldn’t feel it and not caring how risky it was, Karkat laid his hand gently on top of Dave’s. 

Dave stared at their hands. Karkat’s rested on the top of his bedspread, going straight through the barrier of Dave’s hand. 

“I wish I could feel that,” Dave said slowly, sounding choked. “I wish I could hold your hand.”

The admittance had Karkat’s shoulders shaking as they sat side by side. Karkat wanted to lean into him, to feel Dave’s warmth, but he knew there’d be nothing to feel. “You will,” Karkat promised, a single tear falling from his eye to slip down his face at the vow. “You will.”

 

 **Day 45**  
Rose sat down next to Karkat at lunch and slapped down her homemade book of spells onto the table with a thunk.

“I have an idea,” she announced evilly. “Who wants to break some rules?”

Karkat gave her a sideways glance, concerned. 

Roxy leaned in immediately, her voice lowered as she reapplied her lip gloss. “I’m in,” she said, popping her lips. “Don’t care what it is—I’m in.”

“Same,” Jane said helpfully, her face set in cold certainly. 

Jade and John shared identical glances of excitement. Karkat knew what that meant.

“Hold on,” Karkat protested. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s a spell to wake up Dave,” Rose told him, flipping through her book to find the right page. “See, this is it.” She turned the book around to him and Karkat saw the page was carefully inked in nothing but lines and dark runes, the aspect symbols interspersed throughout the madness. 

“I can’t read this,” Karkat deadpanned. 

“That’s because it’s in code,” Rose explained. “But I’ve been planning this spell for weeks. Tonight, we see if it works.”

“Magic?” Karkat protested weakly. 

“Magic,” Rose confirmed. 

Karkat felt his insides squirm with discomfort. 

“Come on, Karkat,” Roxy said, throwing her arm around his shoulders. “I thought you and magic were friends now?”

“Not exactly,” Karkat said, shrugging free of her grip. 

“I wonder why that is?” Rose said, looking deeply at him as for a second her eyes glowed, the symbol for Light shining within them.

It still struck Karkat oddly that his fellow students were casual magic users. Its like when he moved here the rules of the world changed, and now magic was a thing that existed, that he fucking used even, and then Dave…

Speaking of which,

“What about Dave?” Karkat asked, knowing that the ghost was absent today and scrounging for support. “Doesn’t he get a say in this?”

“I’m voting for him,” Dirk sighed tiredly, rubbing at his eyes. “Besides, Karkat, you’re outvoted either way.”

“Dammit,” Karkat said, scowling. “What does this mean I have to do?”

“Just show up on time,” Rose told him, snapping her book shut again, the spine of it straining to contain all of her pages. “We’re all meeting at John’s. He’s driving us to the hospital.”

John winked at Karkat and he felt ill. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” Karkat said. 

“Why not?” Rose asked. 

Karkat’s gut squirmed, the memory of his nightmare surfacing for a brief moment of chills. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just have a feeling.”

“But you want to help, right?” Rose said, obviously baiting him now as she batted her lashes innocently at him.

“Of course I do,” Karkat sighed, defeated as he promised, “I’ll be there.”

 

 **Day 44**  
His dad dropped him off at John’s for the day. Karkat didn’t tell him anything about his plans, but his heart beat faster at the thought that maybe by tonight, Dave might be awake. 

That idea seemed like a miracle but that’s exactly what Karkat needed—a miracle. 

John met him at the door, his eyes solemn. “In here,” he said. “Dirk’s the only one who hasn’t shown up yet.”

Karkat followed him inside. John’s dad waved at him from the kitchen as they passed him by, too busy frosting a huge cake to go and bother them. Rose was in the living room with everyone else, going over her notes with rabid attention. She didn’t look up when Karkat entered the room but she said, “Good. That’s just Dirk that’s left then.”

Karkat scowled at her good-naturedly and she flicked him off without looking up. John snickered and Jade threw a throw pillow at him in response. 

The doorbell rang and John went off again, presumably to let in Dirk and Dave. 

Karkat stared at the assembled group as John reentered the room with the two brothers in tow, one living, and one shade. These were the people who like him were fighting to save Dave’s life. 

“Okay,” Rose said, lifting her head. “John?”

“I can drive us all,” John answered. “Let’s go.”

They all piled into a faded gray minivan. It sat eight people and Karkat ended up squished in the back beside Dave, who hogged an entire seat despite not being corporeal, the bastard, and Jade.  
Jane, Roxy, and Dirk took the middle row, and John and Rose claimed the front. Rose kept turning around to explain her plan to them. “Okay,” she said, “When we get there, act normal. Once we get to Dave’s room we’ll enter the circle.”

“Isn’t that risky?” John asked, his eyes on the road as he backed out of his driveway.

“We’ve never tried including Dave’s physical body inside the circle with us,” Rose told them. “That itself might be key to waking him. Once we’re between the worlds, me and Jane will try and heal the broken bond between Dave’s body and soul. If we can mend the break, Dave should wake up.”

“Or at the very least I should not be stuck as a shade anymore,” Dave interjected. “That could also happen.”

“Or,” Karkat stressed, disliking this pan. “You could fuck around and further sever the damaged bond and strand Dave in the veil forever.”

Rose blinked at him slowly. “I will not let that happen,” She vowed. 

The van hit a bump that had Jane sway into him. “Sorry,” she apologized, squinting beside him to where Dave sat.

“Can you see me today?” Dave asked her curiously.

Jane looked like she couldn’t even hear him. She didn’t react as she shot anther questioning glance at the empty seat Dave occupied. 

Ouch. Karkat looked at Dave, but the specter just sighed and looked out the window.  
…

It was a silent ride to the hospital. 

Karkat keenly felt each passing second with growing anxiety as the van rocked along the bumpy, winding road. Dave was quiet beside him, but his hands were in fists against his legs, the knuckles blackened and bloodied. 

They arrived all too soon and Karkat hung back as he followed the hoard of teens into the hospital.

The lady at the receptionist’s desk blinked at them all in shock as Dirk and Roxy stepped forward.

“We’re here to see Dave,” Dirk told her.

The lady blinked again, her mouth agape. “All of you?” She asked. 

Roxy nodded, lying through her teeth. “It’s my birthday,” she lied. “We can’t celebrate it without him.”

The woman’s face thawed as her eyes warmed. Karkat felt stained by guilt. “Aww,” the lady said, “Right this way, then. If I had half as many visitors as you guy a month I’d be a happier person. Dave’s a lucky guy to have such good friends.”

Dirk nodded, his blank face expressionless as he led the crowd down the hall. Dave’s door didn’t have a lock on it but John quickly stood guard at the doorway.

“Okay,” Rose said, quickly getting to work. “We can’t draw the circle or light candles, so the points of the circle will be represented by us. Everyone, form a circle. Dave, stand beside yourself for me.”

Dave shrugged as he moved into place. On the bed, Dave breathed evenly, showing no sign of recognition to his surroundings. 

Karkat cut Roxy off to make sure he stood right at Dave’s bedside, quickly sliding into place.

Dave winked at him from beneath his shades. 

“Can you hear me?” Karkat asked curiously.

Dave tilted his head in concentration. “Say something else.”

“Dave, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Karkat said. 

Rose, who’d been looking at them with clear interest, scowled at him.

“Loud and clear,” Dave answered, gulping. “And do you have a better idea?”

Karkat remained silent. He didn’t, but he knew this nausea twisting through his gut wasn’t a good sign. 

“Okay,” Rose said as everyone stood in place. “By the authority of a Seer of Light, I call this circle to order.”

The lights overhead flickered. 

“We’re just dipping into the veil,” Rose warned them, opening her spell book. “We’ll stay on the mortal plane this time. I just need there to be enough space between us to connect Dave’s two halves.” She cleared her throat. “Now everyone stay quiet. I have to get this pronunciation right and the broodfester tongues are a bitch to read out loud.”

Karkat stayed quiet as Rose quietly began speaking, the words sharp and grating, earbleed-worthy. The syllables clashed together, the tags skipped from vowel to vowel as the beat fell flat before rolling into the next word. It was like listening to a horrorterror tell poetry.

The words clawed across Karkat’s skin, their just-there meaning enough to sever his attention into parts as he kept his gaze on Rose but his thoughtfulness on Dave. 

Dave’s blank face showed now warning as the lights flickered again. Rose’s voice grew in volume, growing stronger as she began to glow as if lit from within. Her eyes were glazed over with white as her skin took on a grayish hue. 

“Rose,” Dave said calmly. “Whatever you’re doing, stop. Now.” 

Rose’s shadow began to warp, long tendrils stretching outwards as the lights dimmed. The shadows grew, sprouting thorns. They bleed across the walls and up the ceiling, Rose centered in the middle of it.  
“Rose!” Dave yelled, breaking the circle to move towards her.

Karkat saw the horrorterror crouching over her, Rose ensnared within its endless tentacles. His hands clenched into fists as Jade gasped. His fear felt electric. It woke him up, made his breath come faster and his hands shake with adrenaline. 

Rose’s eyes were blank as her voice continued to spill out of her, the horrorterror taking shape around her. Dave grabbed at Rose, but his hands went right through her. “Dammit!” He cursed. “Roxy, help me.”

Roxy grabbed at Rose’s shoulders and shook her. Rose moved like a ragdoll, her face disconnected as the horrorterror writhed around her, becoming more solid by the second. 

“Nobody move!” Dave commanded as Jane tried to take a step forward. “Don’t break the circle.”

“Dave!” Karkat yelled, his feet frozen to the ground. “What’s going on?”

“She’s summoning a horrorterror,” Dave answered, studying tendrils that writhed around a limp Rose. 

“What do we do?” Jade asked as the overhead light sparked and popped, going out with a bang. The floor shook. The lamp beside Dave’s bed exploded, showering the circle with broken glass. 

Karkat watched the horrorteror taking form with a growing terror. His heart pounded away inside him like a drum, tight and fast. He had to do something. He couldn’t just stand here when everyone was in danger.

“Dave, what do we need to do?” Karkat called out, panicking. 

“Give me a second,” Dave said, his eyes roving over the mess of tendrils. When one came too close to him, he stomped on it like he would a spider and the tendril retreated with an ear-splitting shriek. Dave quickly caught onto the movement. He could touch these foul things. He could hurt them. 

Karkat wasn’t sure where Dave drew the sword from. It looked like he raised a hand to his own heart and simply drew the blade from a place inside of himself. The blade was white, like ceramic, not steel, but the edge glinted wickedly in the half-light as Dave stared swinging, hacking through the nest of shadow-tentacles that enveloped his cousin. “Close the circle!” Dave yelled. “As soon as I get her free, close the fucking circle!”

Karkat watched with his heart in his throat as Dave chopped his way to Rose. Inky blood began to bleed out of the wallpaper, the horrorterror physical enough to stain the walls of the hospital as Dave wounded it. 

John began to speak, his voice shaking, “I… I… with the authority of…” His teeth were chattering together at the chill that bleed off of Rose’s still form. His blue eyes were blown wide with fear. 

Dave stabbed at the heart of the thing, the mass of blackness screaming loudly enough that the window shook. “Now!”

“I… I,” John stammered, shaking. 

Karkat didn’t dare hesitate. He didn’t stop to ask if it were possible or not, he simple forced the world to behave as he wanted it to. Karkat jumped into the flow of the magic, plunging deep inside of himself until red coated the back of his mouth with a tinny taste. “By the authority of a Knight of Blood,” Karkat commanded, magic flowing through him and lending power to his words, “I close this fucking circle!”

He felt it when it happened. With a metallic snap that sent its rebound through him like a slap to the face, the circle lurched back to the mortal plane, severing whatever tentacles remained attached to Rose, who collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. 

“Rose!” Jane lunged for her fallen friend, summoning her aspect to her in a heartbeat. “Life!” Green magic wound around her hands as she held Rose upright, the gray slowly retreating from her skin as the frost around her feet thawed. 

Dave kicked one of the melting tendrils away from himself, stomping on them as they dissolved beneath his feet, the mortal plane casting out the dark remnants from the veil.

“What the fuck was that?” Karkat demanded, gulping. 

With a jolt, Rose shot upright, gasping, her face blued and ghostly pale. 

“Rose!” Jade yelled, falling to her knees beside her in the mess of broken glass.

Rose’s eyes flickered open. “What happened?”

“I’ll tell you what fucking happened,” Karkat spat, suddenly enraged as relief poured through him at the sight of Rose’s open eyes. “Your little stunt nearly killed you and the rest of us.”

“What?” Rose aske, her voice sharp with disbelief until she caught sight of the black stain that blossomed from the wallpaper, the outline of tendrils and thorns and tentacles from where the horrorterror had tried to take form. Her eyes were wide and frightened. 

Dave picked up the spellbook and forcefully ripped out the pages Rose had read from. The book dropped to his feet like a dead bird as he dropped it, scanning the pages for himself. “This is a binding spell,” he admitted.

“Duh,” Rose answered, shaking as the realization of what happened began to sink in. “It was for you.”

“This is a binding spell to summon and weave a horrorterror into existence within the mortal plane,” Dave finished scanning the runes he’d ripped out before with a scowl and a curse the pages fell through his gripping fingers to flutter to the floor. 

Rose gaped at him, astonished, and then the door opened and a nurse stuck her head inside, her face panicked. “I’m sorry,” she said, her false smile bright. “But it seems the hospital has suffered a power surge. I’m going to have to ask you to leave until we sort this out.” Her gaze lingered over the broken glass on the floor, her eyes on the new ashy addition to the wallpaper.

“The lamp exploded in the, uh, power surge,” John offered. 

“Let’s go,” the nurse said. “Everybody out!”

They filed out of the room. Karkat helped Jane steady a very unsteady Rose, who put one foot infront of the other like it took all her strength to do so.

They waited to talk until everyone was filed into John’s minivan. 

“What the hell was that?” Roxy asked, her face pale as Rose rubbed at her eyes. 

“I… I don’t know,” Rose stammered, shaking. “That spell, it was supposed to be safe!”

“Where’d you get it?” Dave asked. John was holding the pages close to his chest from where he’d scooped them off the floor. The van idled silently in the background. 

“I had a dream,” Rose admitted, her eyes widening. “I saw it in a dream.”

Karkat’s stomach dropped to his feet. 

“Ward your bed,” Dave ordered her. “Ward your whole fuckin’ house if you have to. If horrorterrors are visiting your dreams, we need to stop them.”

For once Rose didn’t argue. She seemed smaller, withered. “Okay,” she said meekly. “Dave, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Dave told her. “Thank Karkat—he closed the circle after I killed the monster.”

Rose turned to him slowly. ‘You did?” She asked with dull surprise. 

Karkat nodded once, then turned to Dave. “You killed it?”

“Part of it,” Dave said. “It’s hard to kill something that’s not all the way there, but I think I managed it.”

“Where’d you get the sweet sword?” John asked, butting into the conversation with eager curiosity. 

Dave shrugged, looking surprised. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just asked myself for a weapon, and then I had one.”

“It’s a Knight thing,” Rose croaked. “Princes can technically do the same though. As fighters, you each in theory can summon your weapon, though that’s supposed to be upper level magic.”

“Fuck upper level magic,” Karkat said. “Rose, you nearly died.”

She had the audacity to nod like it was no big deal. Karkat’s blood pressure rose. 

“Let’s just go,” John said, backing the van up. “I’ll burn the spell myself and we can put this behind us.”

“But,” Rose protested.

“No,” Karkat interrupted. “I said this was a bad idea, but did you listen to me? No, and look what fucking happened.”

Rose looked at the sea of faces around her, each one put in jeopardy by her actions.

Jane looked exhausted. There were bags under her eyes that weren’t there an hour ago. “You were nearly dead,” Jane told her. “I had to magic the life back into you. That thing… it was feeding off your life force. It would have eaten you up if Dave and Karkat hadn’t stopped it.”

Rose blinked, subdued. “I’m sorry,” she said, the tears beginning to fall. “I’m so sorry.”

It was a long, silent ride back to town, the gentle noise of Rose’s sobs rising over the crunch of the tires on the pavement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah
> 
> What can I even say after a chapter like that? Lots of fun stuff happening as I raise them stakes


	8. The Art of Letting Go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know its only been two days but I wanted to post this chapter early.

**Day 42**  
The leaves were starting to change color, bleeding in reds and cool yellows as the seasons began to tilt and change. The sight pulled at Karkat’s heart with a hollow ache, proof of the passing time as the world continued to shift around him while it felt like he was standing still, watching it all pass by out some window he couldn’t reach through. 

Was this how Dave felt all the time?

Karkat shoved that dark thought away from his mind. The circle had lost its momentum after Rose’s accident and now it felt like Karkat was floundering. He went to the hospital, read out loud to Dave once a week, and it felt like he was going nowhere. 

Karkat sat on his bedroom floor, Dave at his side as he again tried and failed to summon his aspect to him. 

“Blood,” Karkat commanded, his voice thick with magic.

Nothing happened. 

Karkat dove deeper into that place in his mind where his classpect squatted in an ocean of heated, raw red. “Blood.”

Spectacularly, absolutely nothing happened. Karkat gritted his teeth and scowled as he let the magic fade away.

“I think,” Dave broke his silent watching to speak up, “that the issue is psychosomatic.” 

“What do you mean by that?” Karkat snapped, his temper short. 

“I mean exactly what I said,” Dave explained. “It’s got to me physiological. Everything else fits in, except there’s no result. So, it’s got to be a head problem.”

“How do I fix it?” Karkat asked, feeling ill and sore. A headache was beginning to form between his temples like it always did whenever he tried to summon his failed aspect for this long, something deep and pulsing with each beat of his heart. 

“You want to know the truth?” Dave asked, one eyebrow quirked up. “You think you’re ready for it?”

“Hit me,” Karkat challenged. 

“I think that you’re afraid,” Dave stated plainly. “That’s why it’s not working—because a part of you still doesn’t want it to.”

Karkat bared his teeth at the ghost. “Fuck you, I’m trying my best.”

“No, you’re not,” Dave told him, sounding grim. “I’ve seen you at your best. This shit that you’re pulling now, this isn’t it.”

Karkat bit back his next scathing remark, swallowing down the insult before it could leave his tongue. “Why do you think that?” He asked quietly. 

“You closed that circle without a second thought,” Dave reminded him. “Your aspect clung to you so hard in the beginning that the card representing blood fuckin’ _bled_ for you.” Dave sounded so sure of himself, shining with faint pride even that made Karkat’s face heat up. “That’s your best—when you trust your gut and roll with it. All these other times you get so wrapped up in your own head that the magic gets lost or restrained, and that’s why you fail.”

“I’m not afraid,” Karkat said stubbornly.

“Yes, you are,” Dave said, nodding. “And with fuckin’ good reason to be. You’ve seen up close how dangerous magic can be and that makes you respectably wary of poking a stick at what you don’t know.”

Karkat’s eyes flashed as he ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “So how do I undo that?” Karkat asked, desperate. “How do I stop being so goddamn afraid of myself?”

“I’m no expert on blood,” Dave said, his lower lip between his teeth as he contemplated his answer. “But I do know time, and time will fuck you up if you try to fuck with it. I’m guessing blood’s the same.”

“What’s it like for you, when you reach for your aspect?” Karkat asked curiously. 

Dave’s head tilted to the side. “It’s like feeling the heartbeat of all existence caught between my fingertips, but balanced on a razorblade’s edge of fucking up everything and dying a thousand times over. It’s like grabbing eternity by the tail only to discover that the damn thing has teeth at the other end.” His eyes fluttered closed. “What’s blood like?”

Karkat tried to explain it. “It’s like viewing hell,” he said. “I’m always standing on the edge of something tall and there’s nothing in sight but a sea of blood. Even the sky is red. Everything smells like copper and tin and my on heartbeat is so fucking loud. It’s deafening, and there’s this weight crushing me, demanding that I do something, but I don’t know what. I don’t know what it’s asking me to do.”

Dave listened closely, considering. “Are you sure you don’t know?”

That was what everyone kept asking him. Dave, John, Rose, Dirk—do he really have no idea how to help Dave? Did he really not know what blood was asking him to do?

“I don’t,” Karkat repeated for emphasis. “It’s fucking terrifying.”

“Are you afraid of it?” Dave asked. “Do you fear it?”

“Yes,” Karkat admitted. “I’m not afraid of, like, actual blood. But I’m afraid of what it means.”

“Being wounded,” Dave finished. “Being injured?”

“More like the helplessness of not being able help,” Karkat tried to explain. “I always feel so… guilty, like it’s my fault for not being able to stop it.” And he couldn’t forget the way the blood had dripped from Dave’s face in his nightmare, the visceral fear of that moment etched into his brain forever. And then there was Rose’s mistake that had nearly killed her—maybe blood magic wasn’t worth messing with. Maybe all magic was just too dangerous.

Surprisingly, Dave nodded. “Yeah, I get that,” he said. “That helplessness, that feeling of responsibility—that’s a Knight thing. I feel it too.” He leaned back against the wall, cross-legged on the floor. His shades were in the neck of his shirt, folded out of the way. His red eyes were thoughtful. “But I’m not afraid of it.”

“How?” Karkat asked. He reached inside of himself and tried not to feel fear but at the first taste of copper his heartbeat skyrocketed and he opened his eyes again, feeling a chill run through him. He tried anyway. “Blood,” he commanded. “Come to me.”

It was like his aspect was laughing at him as lightning flickered across the backs of his eyelids. 

Dave squinted at him. “Time.”

Nothing happened, but Dave’s shoulder’s shook with a tremor. “I can’t personally use magic like this,” Dave reminded him as he leaned back and his eyes fluttered closed. “But I can still feel the flow of time around me. It’s unstoppable, inescapable, and fickle. It’s capable of both great good and mind-bending evil. Your aspect is a tool—it’s up to you how best to use it.”

“How do you manage it?” Karkat asked, studying the ghost that lounged against his bedroom wall. 

“I’ve learned to give up,” Dave told him, opening his eyes again. “I’ve learned to let go, to fall into the flow. Time’s like that. You’ve gotta roll with it. It’s push-pull.”

“I’ll try,” Karkat promised, musing over the ghost’s words. Dave made a certain degree of sense. Karkat couldn’t summon his aspect while afraid of what that might mean. He recalled John’s words about being faced with his true inner self without the safety net of personal lies or facades to dull the blow and felt something inside his soul begin to shift, vibrating at a new level. It was a curious feeling akin to a shiver down his spine.

Dave waited patiently to the side as Karkat said, “Karkat Vantas—Knight of Blood.” The words sent a familiar spark through his being as he called for the ocean of blood that existed inside of himself. His heartbeat pounded in his ears. _Knight of Blood, Knight of Blood_. What should he do?

Karkat squinted his eyes in concentration, giving up and letting go. “Blood, come to me.”

It came in a flood of red, power and pulse, an inescapable flow. He held out his hand and saw the weeping slash of Blood form itself in the air above his open palm as with a lurch he felt his vision change, fracturing into lines of red. 

Dave was covered in these strings of red, the outlines of what Karkat felt in his gut were the bonds between him and his friends. There was even one linking him and Karkat, illuminated and glowing in scarlet as it wove itself through the air between them. 

Karkat couldn’t help but reach for that red string. He ran his fingers over the invisible bond that only he could see. It felt strong and unbreakable beneath his fingertips. 

Then the magic faded away, taking his migraine with it. Karkat blinked and felt the world return to normal. The glowing red sigil in his hand faded. “Holy shit,” he breathed, exhilarated.

“You did it, man,” Dave congratulated him with a nod, smiling widely. “How’d it feel?”

“Good,” Karkat admitted, sensing nothing malicious about the inner workings of blood. It felt warm, soothing, like sinking into a hot bath at the end of a long day. Even his headache was gone. “It felt fucking good.”

“See?” Dave told him smugly. “Your aspect is a tool. It can’t be good or bad by itself. Everything depends on how you use it.”

Karkat nodded, believing him. “Hold on, I want to try something,” he said, concentrating. “Let me know if you feel this.” he plunged eagerly back inside the magic and summoned his aspect to him with ease. “ _Blood._ ”

Instantly the world was illuminated in shades of red again as Karkat reached for the bond linking him and Dave together and gave it an experimental yank, not trying to damage it, never, but to see if Dave could feel it. 

Dave shuddered. “What did you do?” He asked curiously. “I felt… something.”

Karkat grabbed for the bond and shook it, sending peaceful thoughts down the line at Dave like this was a setup with tin cans and string, like they were children telling secrets in the park, safe in their childhood innocence. 

“Woah,” Dave said, sitting upright. “What are you doing? I feel… better. Not as worried, I guess.”

“I’m trying to send you happy thoughts,” Karkat admitted, struggling to make the magic flow with him. The magic warped and he lost hold of the bond, feeling blood lash back at him with a hot wave of sickness as he tried to use the wrong kind of magic for his class. 

_Foolish Knight_ , blood seemed to taunt him. _Wrong wrong wrong._

Karkat gritted his teeth as he let the magic fade again, winded. “How the fuck did Rose ever figure this shit out on her own?” Karkat wondered aloud. “Magic’s impossible.”

“I think it’s her classpect,” Dave shrugged, studying him closely. “She’s a Seer of Light. I bet she would always have found this out on her own, even without my accident to rush that timeline forward she’s always had that vibe, you know?” Dave shrugged again. “Seers guide, so it suits Rose best to teach the rest of us how it’s done.”

Karkat smiled, exhilarated. He could summon his aspect. He’d figured it out, with Dave’s help. He’d learned to let go of his anxieties and worries for long enough to make the magic come to him naturally. 

And that was how Karkat discovered his second true thing. 

 

**Day 40**  
Rose was overjoyed at Karkat’s progress with his aspect. It seemed to fan the spark in her, the one that had been subdued since the horrorterror incident. “You’ve done what now?” She asked excitedly. 

Karkat shot a quick glance around the empty art room, but they were alone. He called the magic to him. “Blood.”

Rose’s eyes shone, reflecting the red glow of his sigil as the sign for blood hung in the air above his spread fingers. 

“Very good,” Rose praised, and she studied him with a curious expression. “Is that all you learned from Dave?”

“Yeah?” Karkat said, confused as Rose killed his excited buzz. “Isn’t this the goal I was working towards? Summoning my aspect?”

“Not quite, though it’s certainly a step,” Rose told him, disappointed. “Your goal is to wake Dave, remember?”

“I can’t forget,” Karkat told her through gritted teeth. “It’s all I ever think about every second of every goddamn day.”

“You’ve made progress,” Rose admitted. “This is a huge step forward and it’ll bring you closer to the end. I know that you can do it.”

“How the fuck do you know all this?” Karkat demanded, growing tired of feeling like he was the only one out of the loop. “Is it your classpect?”

“Partly,” Rose shrugged, and the sign for light shone deep in her violet eyes. “I see things in my dreams. I hear the whispers of a thousand other monstrous beings, things beyond horrorterrors that lurk in the abyss outside the end of creation. They tell me things, at least the things that my classpect doesn’t grant me itself.”

That sounded fucked up. “Why do you listen?” Karkat asked. “Why keep your ears open after what happened?”

“They tell me useful things,” Rose explained. “Even if they’re monsters from the Other Side, that doesn’t exactly mean that they’re _monsters_ , Karkat.” She leveled a frank look at him. “I made a mistake, yes, but one that was easy to rectify. It won’t happen again.”

“That doesn’t exactly answer my question,” Karkat stated, not backing down. 

Rose sighed. “I know that before you wake Dave, you need to learn three things,” She said. “Three individual, very important things that together will be the key to waking him. You’ve learned two of them. There’s still one missing, and before you ask I don’t know what it is or what it could be.”

Karkat’s mind was blown. “What?” He asked weakly. 

“Three things,” Rose reminded him. “Each acts like part of a puzzle that will let you see the whole picture. You’ve gained the knowledge of two of these things so far.”

“I have?” Karkat said, scourging through his mind for any answer that jumped out at him and coming up blank. 

“Karkat,” Rose told him, staring, her gaze unbelievably gentle. “I’ve watched you grow so much during this school year, from a floundering stranger into a firm friend and fellow circle member and magic user. I’ve known since the beginning that you were important, even when I didn’t want to believe it.”

Karkat’s throat felt tight as she went on. 

“You know,” Rose said, chuckling. “I was jealous of you, at first, when I realized what you would do. I thought it was unfair that some stranger would burst into my circle and set everything on fire around me, but it’s been a welcome change. You were exactly what we need, all of us, not just Dave.”

Karkat didn’t know what to say. “When will I learn this last thing?”

“I don’t know,” Rose said, and her eyes shone again. “But I have a feeling that it will be soon.” She smiled, her expression blinding. “Can you imagine it? We might have Dave back by Christmas time if this trend continues.”

The door opened, letting in a rain of fallen leaves that gusted in on the crisp autumn breeze. Mrs. Paint bustled into the room, her apron stained with paints of all shades.

Rose leaned closer to him, her eyes wicked. “I’ll tell you one thing,” she said, her lips pressed against his ear. “That shade earlier I told you about? The one that was woken?” She laughed into his ear. “His lover woke him.”

Karkat’s face burned with red embarrassment. “Fuck off,” he said, also laughing. He felt good, like a bit of his anxiety had dissipated in the face of a near future that had Dave in it. 

Rose shrugged. “You love him, don’t you?” she asked. 

“I do,” Karkat said, sitting on the painting table with his legs swinging in the air. “I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of Plot happening in here. Also, more foreshadowing. It's a shorter chapter but there's a lot of significance that goes on inside of it.


	9. Ringing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a shorter chapter, so have some fluff

Chapter nine.  
Ringing

**Day 39**  
It was Saturday again. Karkat had finished reading aloud his third book to Dave and had moved onto a book of children’s fables, something thick and monotonous that had a melody woven into the words so that Karkat could easily read them aloud. These were words meant for being shared. Dirk was here today, flitting about the room like he couldn’t stand in one place for too long without internally combusting. 

“I’m out,” Dirk said after not long. “I’ll see you guys in a minute.” He quit the room to go wander the hospital and probably call his boyfriend Jake, who’d been texting him all afternoon.

“They’ve never actually met before,” Dave drawled from the corner, answering Karkat’s unasked question. “Him and Jake.”

“How much does Jake know about all of this?” Karkat asked curiously, clogging the book in his hands and setting it in his lap. 

“Most of it,” Dave admitted. “He knows about me, and the shade me, and magic crap, though I’m not sure how much he actually believes. He seems to be chill with it though.”

“Where’s he live?” Karkat asked, nosing into Dirk’s private life. 

Dave seemed happy to spill the details. “Hawaii,” He answered. “So Jake’s very, very far away and there’s that whole time zone issue, but somehow they make it work.”

“Huh,” Karkat said, and he went to open his book again but was stopped by Dave.

“Wait,” the ghost said. “I wanted to ask you something.”

Karkat tilted his chin. “What is it?”

“It’s a bit off track,” Dave admitted. “But, like, how did you end up here? In this town, this place? Not many people move into places like this.”

“Oh,” Karkat asked, surprised. “My dad travels a lot for his work, so I’ve been to a lot of laces before, big cities mostly. He retired early and wanted to experience the small town life, so… here I am.” Karkat shrugged. “It’s a pretty boring story really.”

“Huh,” Dave said, staring at him. “I don’t know, in the beginning it seemed like you’d bite the head off anyone who asked, so I thought there was some big story there.”

Karkat had to restrain a laugh. “You what?”

“It’s true,” Dave defended himself. “Anytime anyone brought up your past you’d get this ragey, pissed-off look on your face, like you were daring them to continue. Shit was scary.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Karkat gaped, his mouth hanging open. “All the school’s I’ve been too and acting like that’s never worked before.”

“What can I say,” Dave said, grinning. “Southern hospitality dictated we don’t pry at stranger’s lives.”

“It was actually really comforting to me that no one asked me questions like that,” Karkat admitted, the book forgotten in his lap. “I was expecting some kind of interrogation. That’s what I was used to. Moving here, with no one asking about my past, it seemed like… I don’t know, like they accepted me easier. Like everyone accepted me for me.”

Dave nodded his gaze troubled. “That seems hard,” he said. “Moving around like that. I can’t imagine it.”

“It could be hard,” Karkat admitted, remembering all the friends he’d left behind. Terezi, Sollux, fuck, even Aradia. They’d love this magic ghost story he’d fallen ass-backwards into. He missed them with a sharp ache in his heart. “It’s different. I’ve never had one single place to call home before, and I never imagined that it would be a place like this.”

The sunlight streamed through the window and illuminated Dave’s sleeping face. For once, Karkat wasn’t pissed off at being stuck in the middle of screwball-fuckoffville, square in the middle of a hot Southern Nowhere. It felt like this sleepy place was his home. It was growing on him. 

Damn Dave. This was all his fault, wasn’t it? Then Dave smiled and Karkat immediately forgave him for making Karkat enjoy the small town life. 

Karkat kept the book closed in his lap as he leaned forward in his chair, scooting closer to Dave’s body. Dave looked at him curiously. 

“Can I touch you again?” Karkat asked. 

Karkat tried not to read too much into it as Dave answered, “Please.”

Karkat ran his fingers through Dave’s hair again. He kept his eyes on the shade though, not on the body. Dave’s head tilted back as his eyes closed.

With his heart in his throat, Karkat continued to card his fingers through Dave’s pale hair. 

“God,” Dave choked out. “I wish you could know how good that feels.”

“What’s it like?” Karkat asked. He didn’t dare to stop as Dave answered. 

“I can’t feel anything,” Dave told him, his eyes still closed. “But then when you touch me, I can feel it. And it’s all I can feel. Your touch is like water in the desert.”

Dave state this like it was an absolute fact, like he didn’t know what the words would do to Karkat. 

He liked knowing that Dave wanted his touch. Karkat probably liked that fact too much. 

Spurred on, Karkat reached up with his other hand and cupped Dave’s face in his palm. His skin was cool to the touch. 

To the side, Dave froze. 

Carefully, so carefully, Karkat traced the outline of Dave’s cheekbone with his thumb. 

“Karkat…” Dave trailed off, his voice pained. 

“Do you want me to stop?” Karkat asked, turning to face the ghost. 

Dave’s eyes flickered closed as he swallowed. “No.”

Karkat concentrated on the sleeping face in his hands. This close, he could see all of the scars that littered Dave’s skin. There was the one that bisected his pale eyebrow, the matching result of the bruise Dave had worn on the first day of school. Dave’s beautiful sculpted lips had a flaw in them where the skin was dragged upwards slightly at one part into a scar, the remnant of several split lips that happened in the same spot. His nose was off-center, proof of past breaks. Up close, Dave’s skin was a map of abuse that made Karkat’s throat tighten with pity. 

But once he looked past all of the flaws, Dave’s face was incredible. His skin was rapidly warming under Karkat’s hands as he traced his way along a cheekbone that looked carved from marble. Dave’s skin was soft and pale. Karkat didn’t want to stop touching him, so he kept Dave’s face in his hand as he dropped one hand to grasp Dave’s unmoving fingers. 

From the side, Dave startled with the sudden movement. His eyes were still closed as he shifted in place, leaning unconsciously closer. 

Karkat ran his thumb over the backs of Dave’s scarred knuckles, feeling the shape of valleys between them, and then, before he could stop himself, he raised Dave’s hand to his lips as he kissed Dave’s skin.  
It was a light kiss, nothing but a simple peck of the lips, but Dave jumped like he’d been electrocuted. To the side, the heart monitor beeped as the sleeping Dave’s heartbeat increased slightly. 

Karkat froze, his eyes locked on the ghost. 

“Shit,” Dave breathed, opening his eyes. “I swear I felt that to my fuckin’ toes.” His naked gaze found Karkat’s and his red eyes were burning with intensity as he joked, his voice shaking. “You gonna Sleeping Beauty my comatose ass or what?”

Karkat couldn’t help but laugh even as his mind jumped to that conclusion with a flash of heat. It couldn’t be that simple. “Was that okay?” Karkat asked, burning with curiosity and need. He’d never before wished that Dave could touch him back quite so badly before. It was an exquisite kind of torture. 

Dave’s lips parted. “Yeah,” He answered, running a hand through his hair like he was trying to remember Karkat’s touch even as his other hand reached up to cup his own cheek where Karkat’s hand still rested.  
Karkat’s heart was beating wildly inside of him. 

“Its fine,” Dave said, not mentioning the kiss. “It’s more than fine, actually.”

“Oh,” Karkat said lamely, unsure of what to do or say now that he knew what Dave’s skin felt like under his lips. His face was burning. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, I just—”

“No, it’s’ alright, really,” Dave interrupted. “I… I liked it.”

“You did?” Karkat squeaked, and somehow his blush grew hotter.

That was when Dirk walked in, immediately witnessing how Karkat was tenderly cupping Dave’s face. His eyebrows rose as he whistled. “Wow,” he said. “Dave, as your brother, I feel like I shouldn’t be seeing this.”

“Fuck off,” Dave said, scrambling for an excuse but coming up empty. His shades were back in place, his expression blank as a piece of paper. 

“Look,” Karkat explained, and he traced his thumb down the ridge of Dave’s cheek again, going back and forth. Overheat the heart monitor displayed the subtle change in Dave’s heartrate. “See how it changes?”

Dirk blinked at the screen, shocked. “How are you doing that?” He asked, coming closer. 

Karkat shrugged and regretfully took his hands away from Dave’s body. To the side, Dave’s specter pouted in a way that only Karkat could read. “It must be due to him being able to feel me.”

Dirk copied Karkat’s motion on the other side of Dave’s face as Dave himself crowded in for a better look, the three of them hovering over the body on the bed. “Can you feel that?” Dirk asked.

Dave concentrated, then sighed. “No,” he admitted. “Not at all.”

“But you can feel Karkat?” Dirk asked, his tone unreadable. 

Dave shrugged, clearly uncomfortable under his brother’s glare. “Yeah?”

Karkat swallowed thickly, his heart in his throat. 

Dirk turned back to him. “Summon your aspect,” He told Karkat. 

“What?” Karkat asked, confused. 

“Call blood to you,” Dirk said. “I want to try something.”

Karkat looked at Dave, who shrugged, looking equally eager as his brother. 

Karkat closed his eyes and pulled for his magic until the sign for blood hovered behind his eyes. He didn’t see any red strings this time, he wasn’t a Seer, that wasn’t his kind of magic, not until he concentrated on Dave, feeling his way through the air around the ghost until he senses a single fraying line anchoring him to the sleeping version on himself. Mind and body were linked, together, but separate. 

Karkat squinted, summoning more magic to him. 

“What do you feel?” Dirk asked him, his tented fingers interlaced under his chin, belaying his anxiety. 

Karkat opened his hands and red light filled them, blood magic writhing around him in a wave that he didn’t know what to do with. He stared hard at the fraying bond that held Dave to his body but no solution presented itself. 

“Goddammit,” Karkat cursed and reluctantly let the magic fade away. “I can see the line connecting Dave to his body, but I don’t know what to do. It just exists. I can’t touch it.” He kicked his feet along the floor in frustration. “This would be a lot easier if I wasn’t a Knight. I bet a Sylph could fix this in three seconds flat.” 

“But you’re not a Sylph,” Dirk reminded him gently, trying not to look disappointed. Dave’s face was unreadable. 

“I will figure this out,” Karkat vowed, crossing his arms over his chest. He heart his own pulse sounding loud in his ears as he swore to it, sealing the deal. “I will figure out a way to save you, Dave.”

The ghost only nodded, his eyes far away behind his shades. “I believe you”

 

**Day 37**  
Another boring Monday. A part of Karkat felt crushed that the week dared to turn out so normal after everything he’d been through these past few days. Fuck, he’d kissed Dave. On the hand. That was a thing that happened. 

And he still had geography homework.

What the hell?

At least lunch would be better. Karkat found Dave sitting next to John and laughing about whatever mindless drivel the teen had said. Today was a good day, Karkat could tell. Jane could see Dave easily, even hear his voice. Roxy was smiling as Jade threw her sandwich crusts at the ghost, who had the dexterity to swat them aside in a feat of clever physical manipulation. 

Karkat sat beside than and Dave spared him a small, secret smile that had Karkat’s face heating up. 

This was going to be a good day. 

 

**Day 33**  
By the end of the week things had started to fall apart again. Karkat had been around for long enough to recognize the pattern. The full moon and thus Rose’s monthly circle meeting was still a week away, and Dave’s presence was fading to the circle members who weren’t as sensitive to him.

It started, as always, with Jane. It began slowly as the girl began to lose track of the ghost in the crowded hallways of the school, then she started missing Dave at lunch, then the ghost was gone to her. 

Then the change hit Roxy a few days later. With her it happened suddenly, like a switch had been flipped. 

This was normal behavior. Sad, but normal.

Then Jade started to not see him, but that night was the full moon so that was a problem that didn’t linger for long enough to cause problems.

It still dragged at Karkat’s heart as he remembered the fraying line that had connected Dave’s soul and body. Was this just the beginning? A touch of Dave’s fear bit at him in the chest, nipping with teeth made of loneliness and abandonment. Jade acted like the brief slip in her awareness didn’t happen, and likewise Dave also ignored it, and together everyone else ignored it like if they all concentrated hard enough and kept quiet enough about it then it would not happen again.

It was enough to drive Karkat crazy, but what was he to do about it? 

The trees stood bare in the river bottoms, leafless and naked. The only spots of green were the holly, the magnolia, the honeysuckle, the lone loblolly pine thick and old enough to have been here when Washington fought the redcoats. The season had turned over, giving way to cooler air and crisper nights.

It was still hot outside by Karkat’s standards. Fall in the south was a mild thing, noticeable only through the changes it wrecked on the environment around him. It was kind of funny when the temperature hit sixty degrees and everyone started wearing long sleeves and sweaters to combat the cold while Karkat walked around in a light shirt and jeans. 

Time was passing and only Karkat acted like it hurt. It felt like some great deadline was hovering over him, lined up with the end of the semester as the shadows grew longer and darker and the sun began to set earlier and earlier, shortening the day into a span of hours that he felt crawl by him in inches. 

Karkat’s heart beat louder and louder as the days flickered by, stagnant, poised on the edge of something he couldn’t see but could feel, the blade of the guillotine hovering overhead. He read aloud to Dave again. Karkat didn’t kiss him again, but he held on to Dave’s hand for dear life before he left with Dirk with the ghost of Dave following behind him silently, watching him, always watching him like he was asking a question and expecting an answer.

Dave grew quieter, more subdued. Karkat hated that too. He wanted his Dave back, the one that laughed and smiled and drew dicks across his homework, not this silent specter that watched him with red eyes that gave off no light. 

It was like the great timeline Karkat could feel was ticking down by days, each one growing closer to the ending that he could feel hovering in the future. Ticking, ticking, ringing in his ears...

Karkat could feel it. He had to hurry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND WE END WITH ANGST!!!! hahahahaha
> 
> we're really getting into the ending days now ;) 
> 
> Can you feel it? The timeline counting down? What happens at the end?


	10. Like Fractured Lines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter is up!
> 
> Angst.... its coming for us all

**Day 7**  
It was the beginning of the end of the semester. Mid-November with the promise of Christmas break so close that Karkat could feel it and yearned for its promise of freedom, deceptive as it was as the days grew colder and colder until he woke up to frost on the grass outside his house.

Final exams loomed overhead, but the cold invigorated Karkat. He loved the colder weather more than the simmering heat of the oppressively long summers down here. This cold felt like it woke him up even as he poured himself a cup of coffee before heading out the door to board the bus. 

His footsteps crunched beneath him, breaking the thin crystals of ice that had formed, melting even as the sun rose to touch them with trailing fingertips made of golden light that crept above the bare trees. His breath fogged the air with each exhale.

The bus was crowded today, not many students braving the elements to travel to school on their own. It was surprising how fearful southerners were of a little ice, but then again Karkat couldn’t blame them. They hadn’t lived through a long Minnesota winter before, like he had, dueling Terezi with rods made from snapped-off icicles as Vriska kept careful score, cheating as always. 

The sun was rising red and bloody through the cold air. John was bundled up in a bright blue jacket that matched his eyes. Dirk wore a simple gray hoodie with the hood drawn up around him. Jade was wearing a knit scarf. Only Dave was untouched by the cold in the exact same outfit he was always in. The sight pulled at Karkat’s heart as a traitorous part of his mind imagined how cute Dave would look wearing something warm and fluffy. He crushed down the part of him that wanted that image, focusing on the present. Daydreaming would get him nowhere and deliver nothing but suffering. He’d learned that the hard way. 

Karat took his seat. His breath coated the window in fog as he turned to Dave, nodding hello. Dave’s eyes twinkled as he shared a slow grin, sweet as honey. 

“Morning guys,” Jade said, grinning as she shivered. “What’s the plan for today?”

Roxy shuddered out her next breath. “Stayin’ fuckin’ warm,” she grumbled, wrapping her arms around herself. 

“I, for one,” Roe spoke up, looking up from her lap, which had her spellbook propped up between the pages of the math textbook. “Think I’m going to ace my English exam.”

“That was today?” John asked, horrified. 

Rose clucked her tongue at him. “Yes, John. It’s today.”

John dove for his backpack and pulled out his English packet, immediately burying his nose in the papers with a panicked look.

Dave barked out a laugh. John ignored him, too busy cramming.

“So,” Karkat asked, sliding closer to Dave on the bench seat. “Nice day, isn’t it?”

Dave grinned at him. “It’s perfect,” he answered, and something slow and burning lit itself in Karkat’s chest, keeping him warm as the bus bounced its way to the school. 

…

 

The classrooms all ran the heat full-blast to combat the chill outside, which led to a great shedding of layers as soon as Karkat walked indoors. There were loose sweaters everywhere, heaped in piles by the door and hung over the backs of desks. 

Karkat kept his black sweater on, the sleeves large enough to swallow his hands as he started writing out the day’s assignment. 

Dave appeared slowly, like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to stay and bother Karkat or not. His edges only solidified once Karkat set eyes to him and glared, his gaze inviting. He might not have been able to talk to the ghost during class, but knowing that Dave was hanging around was such a comfort to Karkat. He liked having the specter where he could see him, and with John and the others occupied with their test Karkat was one of the few people Dave could bother guilt-free. 

“So,” Dave drawled, settling into his spot against the wall by Dave’s desk. His eyes were so painfully bright today, an extra flicker of life in him. He looked almost exactly corporeal today, even if unnaturally still. “I can’t really feel the cold, but I like it anyway. I used to love the seasons changing. I hated my summers, you know.”

Karkat kept his eyes on the paper he was working on, but his ears were tuned into the shade. When Dave was rambling, it was usually about a bunch of bullshit bravado nothingness. Hearing him speak of something he liked was new, and Karkat paid close attention, fascinated. 

“Summers, man, those were hell,” Dave said, and suddenly this wasn’t another bout of rambling. His voice was serious. “Without school to break up my time into freedom and time spend at home, I was with Bro 24/7. Or trailer was too small to avoid each other and with no AC it was a sweltering hellpit. That was part of why I liked fall so much. There was school, and the heat was sucked out of the world and left everything cool and soothing. There’s this theory out there somewhere, that heat makes people meaner, and by God I think that must be right.”

Dave’s voice was quiet and he spoke almost like he’d forgotten that Karkat was listening. 

“I think even back then it was the time aspect inside of me—that’s why I loved it when the seasons changed. I loved seeing the physical imprint of passing time left on the world. It made it feel like the rest of the world was aging with me, like I wasn’t stuck in one place like it seemed so often when I was home with Bro, dreaming of the time I’d get old enough to stand up to him, or Dirk would grow old enough to battle for custody and win.”

Karkat’s hand was too hard on his pencil. The lead was nearly piercing the paper.

“Bro hated Dirk the most, you know. I think it’s because Dirk looks so much like him. They have the same jaw, the same build, the same hair color, even the same fuckin’ eyes. I think Bro looked at Dirk and saw himself and _couldn’t fucking stand it_. Dirk, he tried to protect me from the worst of it, always, but Bro never hurt Dirk as badly as he hurt me. I think it’s because he knew if he pushed Dirk too hard, Dirk would eventually snap and push back and Bro wouldn’t survive it. We’d talk about killing him when Bro wasn’t home, you know,” Dave said casually. “I think Bro knew that. We had the whole thing planned out to the dime. That’s why he was always so careful around Dirk. Me? I was free game.”

Karkat’s lips trembled as he tried to control his face.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” Dave admitted, his voice still low and frighteningly even. “I guess it’s because, and don’t tell Dirk I’m telling you this… Bro sent a letter to the house from prison asking about me.” Dave let out a bitter laugh that nearly broke Karkat’s heart. “He wanted to know if the facility I was in was a good one, how many times the nurses washed my fuckin’ hair, the newest liquid nutrition I was getting—the whole nine yards. Acting all concerned like, like, like he wasn’t the one who _did_ this to me.” Dave’s voice buckled halfway through his sentence and Karkat set his pencil down a little too hard, breathing heavy. 

“I don’t know what to feel,” Dave said, not looking in his direction. “I want to hate him and a part of me does, but he’s still my Bro. I have good memories with him. It wasn’t all shit all the time. I’m just so fuckin’ confused.”

Karkat turned to Dave, ignoring the neglected assignment sitting on his desk. Dave was more important. Karkat flipped his paper over and started scratching out what he wanted to say, carefully choosing the correct words.

_HE SENT A LETTER?_

Dave leaned closer to read the script and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Sent it all nice and official. Dirk tried to hide it from me but I read it anyway.”

_THAT BASTARD._

Dave grinned but it was a false thing. A lie. His eyes were like storm clouds, red as the rising sun and lit from within. 

_DAVE_

Dave looked over his shoulder as Karkat continued to scribble out the paragraph.

_I KNOW THIS SUCKS. I KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS FUCKING SUCKS WORSE THAN ANYTHING ELSE IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE OF SUCKY OCCURRENCES, BECAUSE LIFE CAN BE SHORT AND TERRIBLE AND THERE ARE NO RULES FOR ANYTHING EXCEPT THE ONES WE MAKE FOR OURSELVES AND THOSE ARE SO EASILY BROKEN EVEN WITH THE BEST OF INTENTIONS BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE PREDOMINANTLY A SHITTY SPECIES._

_I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY ABOUT YOUR BRO. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY ABOUT WHAT YOU WENT THROUGH EXCEPT THAT IF I COULD I’D ERASE ALL OF IT BECAUSE YOU DESERVE SO MUCH BETTER THAN ANYTHING BRO COULD EVER GIVE YOU. YOU SAY YOU HATE HIM? I DO TOO, BECAUSE OF EVERYTHING THAT HE STOLE FROM YOU, AND NOT JUST WHEN HE BROKE YOUR NECK AND LEFT YOU IN A HOSPITAL BED. I HATE HIM FOR A LIFETIME’S WORTH OF INSTANCES THAT HE HAD THE POWER TO PREVENT BUT CHOSE NOT TO, AND IF HE’S ASKING ABOUT YOU NOW, PRETENDING TO CARE, ITS BECAUSE HE’S A SICK CONTROL FREAK THAT EVEN NOW IS TRYING TO GET HIS HANDS ON YOU AND YOUR BROTHER._

_I KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO IGNORE HIM, BUT THE BEST THING TO DO IS CUT HIM OUT OF YOUR LIFE. DON’T GIVE HIM WHAT HE WANTS._

Dave’s hands were shaking as he looked away and said quietly, “I want him to burn.” Dave looked at Karkat, his eyes utterly unfathomable. “There’s so many things I want to tell him, starting with fuck and ending with you even though I’m comfortable with the idea of never seeing him again.”

Karkat went to wrote something else but Dave shot forward and snagged the end of Karkat’s pencil between his pale fingers. 

Karkat felt the jolt and the writing utensil shook. “Here,” Dave said. “Let me.”

Karkat let his hand relax as with Dave guiding his grip, Karkat wrote out something in a handwriting that wasn’t his own. 

_im sorry_

Karkat’s eyes were tearing up. The paper blurred before him as he felt his hand move again.

_everythings going wrong and i cant stop it_

Karkat’s breath was coming in gasps now. His hand was trembling as Dave wrote out his next line, the raw honesty in the simple words undoing Karkat.

_im scared_

__

__

_what if this is the end?_

Karkat took control of his hand again as Dave let his own hand fall back to his side. 

_I’LL WAKE YOU._

Dave wasn’t looking at him.

Karkat wrote it out again, underlining it.

_I’LL WAKE YOU. I WILL._

“It’s just so hard,” Dave said, his voice just above a whisper. “I feel like I’m fading every day. Everything’s heavy now, so fucking heavy. It used to be easy to hang around but now it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, like I’m not meant to linger this long. My deadline’s arriving for that midnight train, Karkat. I can hear the whistle blowing and I’m holding a first-class ticket. I’m so fucking afraid, but I’m nothing but tired at the same time.”

_DAVE._

Dave still wasn’t looking at him.

Karkat all but shoved the paper in the ghost’s direction, knowing he must look crazy to anyone paying attention and not giving a single flying fuck. Now that he had Dave’s attention, Karkat wrote out what he wanted to say. A ringing sound filled his ears with white noise.

_DON’T LEAVE ME._

Dave sighed like the sound pained him. “I won’t,” he promised even as he began to fade from sight. Karkat could see the cinderblock wall through him. “I… I just need some time alone. I’ll see you at lunch, okay?”

Before Karkat could answer, Dave had vanished.

Karkat shoved the chair back from his desk with a loud screech and bolted for the door, yelling, “I’m going to throw up,” As he left so that the teacher wouldn’t send anyone after him as the tears began to drip down his face. 

Once in the bathroom he locked himself in an empty stall and cried. He wasn’t alone; someone else was in here, Karkat could hear them moving around.

“English exam that hard huh?” A male voice asked, disguising a laugh with mock-sympathy. 

Karkat’s temper flared. “Fuck off,” he spat, venomous, and kicked the closed door hard enough that the entire stall rattled around him, choking back tears the entire time. 

The mystery guy left without a word, still laughing his ass off under his breath. Karkat hated the guy instantly on principle alone, but his rage wasn’t enough to distract him for the welling sorrow that was spilling over his rapidly blinking eyelids. 

_What the fuck was that?_

Dave couldn’t just drop bombshells like that on him then fucking Ollie out until lunch, leaving Karkat alone to pick up the pieces of his shattered heart. His breath sounded ragged when he sucked it in, his hands tight against the knees of his jeans. He tried to wipe the tears away but ended up smearing them across his face with the sleeve of his baggy sweater.

Someone else came into the bathroom. “Karkat?”

Karkat recognized the voice at once. “Fuck off, Dirk,” he called through the door, feeling miserable. “Leave me alone.”

“Dave said that you might be upset,” Dirk said quietly, and damn him to hell if that didn’t make Karkat’s heart beat faster. Dave was worried about him? There was a knock on the door. “Open up.” 

It wasn’t a suggestion but Karkat ignored the older Strider brother anyway. “I said fuck off!” Karkat spat, but he felt his anger leaving him, crushed beneath the hollow blow of seeping misery he felt. It was cold as ice in the bathroom. Karkat could feel the chill through his sweater. 

There was a small noise as Dirk leaned against the locked door. Karkat could see a sliver of that gray hoodie through the crack between the plastic frames. “I don’t know what Dave told you,” Dirk said. “But I know that it’s bad. Talk to me?”

“Just leave me alone,” Karkat pleaded. “I’ll be okay, I will, I just need to cry this out first and get it over with.” That was how it worked with him. His emotions would build until they spilled over, he’d cry himself out, and then things would go back to normal. But he’d never felt this empty before, like grief had hollowed him out.

“I can’t do that,” Dirk told him. Then, “was it about Bro?”

“Partly?” Karkat said, swallowing his pain. “It was about everything, alright? Everything that’s fucking happened that I’ve never had the chance to cry over before and now that I’ve started these fucking tears won’t stop.” The last word ended with a pained noise from between his clenched teeth. He felt a hot tear slide down his chilled cheek, trailing salt behind it. He sniffled. 

“I understand,” Dirk said quietly. “I’ve cried my fair share of tears over this shitty situation. I know what it feels like to not know how to stop.”

Karkat wiped at his eyes again, his breathing ragged. “How do you handle it?” Karkat asked. “You’re his fucking brother. How the fuck are you always this composed?”

Dirk set his phone on the bathroom floor and silently slid it under the door to him. “Look at him for me,” Dirk asked. “Look at the pictures.”

Karkat picked up the phone. The lockscreen was set to a picture of Dave’s face, from before, and Dave was smiling goofily, wearing a pointed pair of hot-pink sunglasses that were bedazzled at the edges. His grin was infectious. 

Karkat unlocked the phone with his thumb, Dirk password was his brother’s name, and scrolled through the photo album that Dirk directed him to. 

It was filled to bursting with pictures of Dave. Dave laughing, his expression frozen mid-snort as he drank apple juice out of a wineglass, Dave with a peace sign over his face and the sunlight reflecting off of his shades. Dave, his head bent over the turntables in his room, headphones clamped over his ears. Dave. _Dave Dave Dave_. 

“Why are you showing me these?” Karkat forced out, his heart numb. He couldn’t stop staring at the image of Dave.

“Keep scrolling,” Dirk told him.

Karkat kept going, passing countless images of Dave’s face before he hit the end of the album and the tone pulled a 180. 

There was Dave, lying in a hospital bed with three separate tubes down his throat and nose. His face was so badly swollen that the familiar planes of his cheekbones were obscured beneath the sheer amount of injuries. They’d done a good job cleaning up the blood but there was still red caught in Dave’s pale hair. 

Karkat’s breath caught in his throat. He knew it had been bad, but he’d never imagined that it’d been this bad. Dave’s head was so swollen that the neck brace didn’t fit him right. His normally pale skin was a wash of black and purple, one eye bugged out unnaturally far and distended, a weepy red color that faded to black at the edges. 

“You asked me how I deal with it,” Dirk said.

Karkat stared at Dirk’s feet from the other side of the door, wordless. 

“That’s how,” Dirk answered him. “I remember my brother how he was before, and then I picture him after, and even a year later the two of them don’t reconcile into the same being in my mind. There’s strictly Dave before, and then Dave after.”

Karkat took a deep, shaky breath as Dirk continued. 

“I think I know how it happened,” Dirk said softly. “I think Dave was so full of life before that his soul couldn’t comprehend what happened to him, so to protect itself it severed his consciousness from his broken body as a form of self-defense, only now Dave doesn’t know how to reverse the effects. That’s how shades are created—when the soul rebels so hard against the condition of their body that a schism occurs.”

“How do you know this?” Karkat asked, breathing hard. He slid the phone back to Dirk so he wouldn’t have to look at the evidence any longer. 

“I’m a Prince of Heart,” Dirk reminded him. “I know the patterns to which a soul breaks.”

Karkat closed his eyes and breathed in the cool air, slowly calming down. 

“Trust me,” Dirk said. “I want my brother back just as much as you do. Maybe even more. I’d do anything. If I could go back to that night and reverse our places, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

“Why?” Karkat asked, his tone sharp.

“Because,” Dirk answered matter of factly. “Dave? If our situations were reversed, he’d be okay. He’d have John and Rose and Jade and Roxy and Jane, and he’d get through losing me. It would suck for a while, but he’d live. Me?” Dirk’s voice dropped off for a moment, then, “I won’t survive losing him.”

“Dirk,” Karkat said sternly, angry again. How dare he say that? How **dare** he?

“He’s my little brother,” Dirk said, and his voice wasn’t calm now. His voice shook. “I was supposed to protect him.”

“And you did,” Karkat said, suddenly too exhausted to keep crying. He just felt numb. “You did the best you could.”

“And it wasn’t enough,” Dirk said. “How do I live with that if he doesn’t wake up?”

Karkat didn’t know what to say. What was there to say? He unlocked the door and opened it. Dirk was standing right on the other side, his eyes wet.

“Dave will wake up,” Karkat stated it as a fact as he brushed past Dirk to go run his hands under the hot water from the sink. “I will find a way to save him.”

Dirk’s eyes glittered hard, like citrine diamonds. “Do you swear it?”

Karkat summoned his aspect just enough that the sigil of blood flashed deep in his dark eyes. “I swear it.” He pushed past Dirk, but Dirk pulled him in for an unexpected hug and suddenly Karkat was in an embrace. 

“Thank you,” Dirk said, his voice muffled. “Please, whatever it takes, whatever you need—I’ll be there. Just, just help him. Please.”

“I will,” Karkat said, promising it as he hugged Dirk back and got tears all over the shoulder of his gray hoodie, the words shaking inside him, buzzing, filled with ripe promise like a tomato on the vine, its expiration date looming overhead to turn it sour and rotten. 

For the first time Karkat realized that there was more at stake here than Dave’s life. Everyone who could see the shade had their fate irrevocably tied up with his. There was no separating them. 

Karkat would wake Dave. Soon. Karkat wiped away his tears, his expression set with determination. He had too, before the crushing weight of this unasked for responsibility killed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHEW what a scene
> 
> poor dave. poor karkat.
> 
> poor everyone. this is such a shitty situation they're all in and poor karkat for having to deal with it
> 
> anyone notice the timer? We're in the final week now ;)


	11. Blue as God

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter yay!!!

Blue as God

 **Day 5**  
Dave went on acting like nothing had changed between them when in reality everything had. He would get on the bus in the morning, laugh and joke and bother Karkat during class, and act like nothing at all was wrong.

It was enough to drive Karkat crazy as cold locked the land in ice. There would be no snow this far south, but a bitter cold set in each night so that Karkat woke up to frosted ice on the dead grass of his yard. Winter was here and Christmas break was right around the corner and Karkat felt like he was running out of time. 

School started slow and cold. Dave hadn’t been present on the bus but he appeared during lunch and afterwards in the art room when everyone had gathered around a small table, plotting the next full moon circle which would be the first one since Rose’s summoning accident. The full moon was a whole five days away and yet Rose stressed the importance of planning everything out.

“This is it,” Rose said, outlining her words in purple ink. From the page, the familiar symbols swam and swarmed in Karkat’s eyes. “This is the spell that will wake Dave.”

Karkat huffed out his breath in annoyance. Every full moon it was the same bullshit, the same ‘new spell’, the same false hope.

The sound drew Rose’s ire. “Something wrong, Karkat?” she asked, a glint in her steely eye.

“We don’t need more spells,” Karkat said plainly. “What we need are more people.”

Rose blinked at him, Karkat’s new narrative ensnaring her. “Explain.”

“Look at how much stronger the circle became after I joined it,” Karkat pointed out. “I’m certain that someone with the right classpect can wake him, and even if I’m wrong we can only benefit from having more classes and aspects join us.”

“We cannot trust new people enough to teach them the arcane arts,” Rose stated flatly. “You were the exception to the ‘members’ only’ rule.”

“And I’m a Knight of Blood,” Karkat reminded her. “My strength lies in knowing others. Shit, I deal with people. I know they’re not to be trusted most of the time, but some of them can be. What about Jake?”

“Jake’s being initiated into the circle this summer when he flies down to visit me, after graduation,” Dirk answered, rubbing at his tired face. “He already knows about magic and has proven himself trustworthy so far.”

“See?” Karkat said, excited. “That’s one more person that we have to work with.”

“Do you have anyone specific in mind?” Rose said, slightly teasing.

Terezi, Karkat thought at once. Sollux. Tavros. Feferi. Aradia, shit, even Vriska. “No,” he said aloud, putting his absent friends out of mind for now. “But that’s not the point. All I’m saying is there’s got to be someone out there who can do something that we haven’t tried yet.”

Jade bit at her lip. “It’s worth a shot,” she said slowly. “Rose, I know how protective you are of this but maybe Karkat’s right.”

“What do you guys want me to do, start a fucking cult?” Rose asked, exasperated. She pushed her headband higher up to contain her choppy hair. 

“Don’t say that like you wouldn’t be thrilled at the prospect,” John told her, grinning. He threw his arm around her shoulders. “I can see it now! Rose Lalonde, cult leader extraordinaire.”

Rose chuckled, smiling with mirth. “I do suppose I wear enough black eyeliner to pull off such a prestigious look,” she said, striking a pose as everyone laughed. 

Dave might have laughed the hardest, guffawing with joy as he clutched at his stomach. “Rose, cut it out,” he complained, his shades handing sideways on his face with a goofy grin that tore at Karkat’s heart. “I’m going to explode.”

Rose drew herself back up with more elegance and poise than Karkat had in his entire body. “I don’t suppose you have any objections to this insane plan, do you Dave?”

Jane looked uncomfortable at the mention of the ghost she couldn’t see or hear, but not in a bad way. Just in a sad one. 

Karkat was noticing these kinds of things more often, the times when his friends would slip up and forget that Dave was there. It was happening everyday now, even to Jade. He wondered how much Dave knew, and how badly these occurrences hurt him. For Karkat each slip was like a nail driven into his heart, only now he had so many nails hammered there that the organ itself felt weighted down. 

“Naw,” Dave answered, nonchalant. “If Karkat thinks it’s a good idea, I’ll bite.”

Karkat felt warm at the display of trust.

“Let’s not rush this,” Rose cautioned. “I might be persuaded to change my mind, but such a thing won’t happen before the circle meets again. Let’s focus on this full moon, and my plan.” She tapped one black-painted nail against the page of her beloved spellbook. “I just know I have it right this time.”

“What is it?” Dave asked curiously. 

“Another binding spell,” Rose admitted. “But this time without the horrorterrors, I swear.”

Karkat gulped and tried to read the spell over Rose’s shoulder, but upside down the strange runes made no sense to him. “Why don’t you try writing these things in English so we can at least proofread it for you?”

“None of this has an exact English translation,” Rose explained. “The broodfester tongues are a pain to learn, but useful.”

That sat oddly with Karkat. “Is that the only language of magic there is?” He asked, not trusting anything with so sinister a name. 

“No,” Rose admitted. “But it’s the only one I speak, so it’ll have to do.”  
…

 

“I just don’t get it,” Karkat told Dave, lounging on his bed on his belly with his socked feet in the air. “Why is Rose so obsessed with these spells?”

Dave shrugged thoughtfully. “I think, for her, this is how she helps,” he answered. “Could you stand to do nothing?”

“No,” Karkat admitted.

“It’s the same for her,” Dave said. “Rose has never been one to back down form a problem, and she’s treating this like another puzzle to solve.”

“People aren’t puzzles,” Karkat said, musing over why he felt so put-off at the idea of more spell work involving Dave. 

“I know,” Dave said, then, “Why’d you call me here?”

“Oh.” Karkat let his eyebrows raise. “I wanted you to teach me something.”

“Like what?” Dave asked curiously. 

“Teach me how to summon my weapon,” Karkat asked, and just the thought of it made his palms yearn for something to hold.

Dave’s reaction was visceral. He shuddered, full-body, and asked, “Why do you want to learn that?”

Karkat shrugged. “It seems like a good thing to know,” he admitted, struggling to explain. “And I, I want to learn. I want to know my classpect as much as I can, and it feels like I’m discovering new things about myself every day and I don’t want to go through life knowing that I didn’t learn this when I had the chance.” He kept quiet about the need to protect that he felt coursing through his veins—he figured Dave would guess that bit on his own. They were Knights. Such things went unspoken between them. 

“I’m… not… sure?” Dave ended it with a question. “Like, I don’t know how I did it before. I just needed a weapon, asked for one, and it appeared like it had always been a part of me.” He shuddered again.

“Does that make you uncomfortable?” Karkat asked with a flash of insight. 

Dave hesitated, the pause long and drawn out between them. “Yes,” he said at last. “I don’t like thinking of myself as armed. I don’t want a fucking weapon. I just want the chance to not have to use it.”

“You didn’t hesitate before, to use it, Karkat reminded him softly. “And doing so saved out asses.”

“That was because it was against a horrorterror,” Dave explained. “Those aren’t human. It’s… okay, I guess… to be violent towards them.” Dave spoke haltingly, the words coming in groups. 

Karkat considered this silently, musing over the idea. It didn’t add up. He was missing something. “So you’re not comfortable with the idea of being armed or using a weapon against a person?” He asked, and a chill went through him at the thought of why. “Me too.”

“You too?” Dave asked, surprised. 

“Yeah,” Karkat answered like that should have been obvious. “I don’t want to be dangerous. I just want to be ready if something else happens.”

“I’m not sure if I can summon that sword again,” Dave admitted. “It only came to me before because I needed it to.”

Karkat sat upright on his bed, the sunlight through the window bleeding orange with the afternoon as it shone down on him. “Can you try?”

Dave’s shades were back on his face, and that was Karkat’s fault, wasn’t it, but Dave nodded, his pale eyebrows creased in concentration. “Uh,” he said, gulping. “Hold on, I’m trying.”

A pale sword suddenly fell into Dave’s outstretched hand. For all that Dave said he was wary of the weapon, he held the blade like it was a natural extension of his arm. The edge shone among the dust motes that glittered through the air as Dave gave it an experimental swing, looking shocked at the ease with which it cut through the air. “Okay, holy shit.”

“Holy shit,” Karkat agreed, excited. 

The sword was clearly not of this world. Its metal was white and solid. It didn’t shine or glitter, but when Dave tested the edge with his thumb he said, “Damn, that fucker’s sharp.” He looked at the pommel where it fit his palm like a glove, strangely pointed. The blade was beautiful. “Huh. That was surprisingly not as horrible as I thought it would be.”

“How’d you do that?” Karkat asked, eager to learn. He didn’t move closer; he knew the sword couldn’t interact with the mortal plane any more than Dave could, but what a sight to behold. 

“I just asked it to come to me,” Dave said, shrugging. “And then it did.”

That sounded simple enough. Rose had called this upper level magic, but Karkat was bound and determined to give it a try. “Let me try.” He reached inside himself for that place where magic lay in wait, then took hold of it with both hands. He didn’t know what to say, but blood knew what he wanted and eagerly provided it with a flash of red that had him tasting blood in the back of his mouth. 

Something both light and heavy all at once fell into his fist, molding itself to his grip like it’d been made for him. Blood seemed to revel inside of him as Karkat witnessed his weapon for the first time. This, it whispered, is to be a Knight.

It was a long wickedly curved blade. The hilt felt blood-hot under his palm and his pulse pounded in his ears. 

“Oh shit,” Dave said his voice raised in excitement. “You’ve got a sickle, bro.”

“Holy shit,” Karkat said, breathless as he raised his hand to study the curved blade. He could feel its sharpness from here, red light seeming to bleed from it. The leather-wrapped hilt had indents in it that fit his fingers perfectly, like he’d been wielding this thing for years instead of five minutes. Aside from that, Karkat felt like he knew this strange weapon, like he’d spent hours familiarizing himself with the way its weight shifted when he gave it a swing, graceful as a claw, sharp as a thorn. 

Dave gave a whistle. “Sweet,” he said, and his shades were gone again. His eyes sparkled. “Now how the fuck do we get them to go away?”

The reasonable question made Karkat let out a laugh. “I have no idea,” he said cheerfully. 

Dave grunted and the sword vanished from his hand. 

“What’d you do?” Karkat asked. 

“I asked time to take it back,” Dave said it like it should have been obvious. “You try.”

Karkat focused on the sickle in his hand. It seemed like such a physical, permanent thing, weighted down in his hand like a brick. There was no way something so real could vanish, but he tried to anyway, simply asking blood to take back his weapon. 

There was a faint pop as the sickle vanished back into nonexistence, easy as pie. “Fuck,” Karkat said, surprised. “I thought that would be—”

The door to his bedroom opened and Karkat’s dad stuck his head in the room, looking around curiously. “Karkat?” He asked. “Are you alone? I thought I heard you talking to someone?” His benign eyes passed right over where Dave was standing without recognition. 

Dave grinned and shot Karkat a wave, making a silly face to try and make him laugh. 

“No,” Karkat answered, glad he’d put away his sickle. How would he have explained that? “It’s just me, alone in my room… talking to myself.” He wanted to hit himself in the face at the awkwardness. From the side, Dave laughed. 

“Hmmm,” his dad said, his face passive and open as he scratched at the stubble on his chin. “Alright then. Dinner’s ready.”

“I’ll be there,” Karkat promised, and his dad left probably thinking that his son was a delusional idiot. Great. He should have just said he’d been on the phone with John or someone, but no. 

“I should probably leave,” Dave said, still standing to the side. “I don’t like leaving Dirk alone for dinner.”

“Okay,” Karkat acknowledged, and Dave vanished back to his home like a soap bubble popping.

Karkat went downstairs to find his dad already at the table. Corn and turkey sat before him on platters, the beautiful setup and presentation of the meal always ringing sad to Karkat as he sat down at the only other place set at the huge, mostly empty table. 

“How’s school going?” Dad asked curiously, starting with his normal opening question. 

“Fine,” Karkat answered, giving his normal answer to the expected question as he prepared himself for another round of polite back and forth. 

Then Dad took the script in both hands and tore it along the edge. “So,” he said. “I noticed that you’ve been hanging out with a new group of friends lately.”

Using caution, unsure of his footing, Karkat replied. “Yeah.”

“Particularly with that Strider fellow,” Dad mused thoughtfully, and for half a heartbeat Karkat thought he meant Dave until he realized he must mean Dirk. Then Dad further broke from the narrative by immediately proving Karkat wrong. “Do you think he will wake up?”

Shit, Dad did mean Dave. He must have caught on from all the afternoons that he’d driven Karkat to the hospital. 

Karkat tried for truth. “Yes, I do.”

Dad scratched at his chin again, the sound of his nails against unshaven stubble grating against Karkat’s ears as he asked, “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Is what a good idea?” Karkat asked, confrontational. “Having hope?”

“Leaving yourself open to regret,” Dad clarified. “I talked with his doctors. They informed me that Dave… his condition is just too bad.”

“People wake up from comas all the time.” Karkat didn’t know why he was arguing like this. He should have just put his head down and pretended to accept it, but he was physically unable to not instantly back up Dave. “There’s a chance for him.”

“Less than 5% isn’t a chance,” his dad told him gently. 

Karkat sulked. “Why do you even care?” He asked, confused. 

Dad sighed like the weight of the world was on him. “Because I see you every Saturday, spending your time with him in that quiet room, getting your hopes up every time. I don’t want you to be disappointed when that miracle you’re hoping for doesn’t happen.”

Karkat’s temper flared but he fought it back with a snarl. “I’m not hoping for some miracle,” he lied. “I’m fully capable of knowing how poor Dave’s condition is.”

“Then why read to him?” Dad asked, confused. “Why spend your weekends at his side?”

“What’s it to you anyway?” Karkat shot back, knowing attack was the best type of defense.

Dad sighed again. “I know what’s it’s like to wait on someone to change for you,” he said, and Karkat couldn’t ignore the empty place at his father’s side, the placemat unset, the silverware still neatly rolled up. “I know what it’s like to wait and to wait and to wait only to be disappointed in the end.”

Karkat bit back his first cruel reply, that Dave wasn’t some fucking harlot that would leave him alone to raise a kid that probably wasn’t even his, but he kept the words crammed deep in his heart and he didn’t let them out. Instead, Karkat said, “I will not be disappointed,” he vowed, knowing that he would wake Dave, eventually, soon, whatever the timeline was, but he ended it with a lie. “I know better than to get my hopes up over nothing. You taught me that.”

The jab hit home and Dad sat back in his chair. “Karkat….”

“I won’t stop seeing Dave,” Karkat told him, steeling his heart. “You can’t ask that of me.”

“But why?” Dad asked, confused. “I’m sure his brother visits him often enough. What good can you do?”

What good could he do? That’s the fucking golden question of the hour, wasn’t it?

“I’m not sure,” Karkat forced out, grappling with himself for an answer. “What if… what if I’m visiting him for me?”

Dad tilted his head, looking interested. 

Karkat tried to explain. “It’s quiet there,” he said. “Peaceful. I like reading aloud, I like feeling like I’m doing the right thing, and you can’t argue against Dave being the perfect audience.”

“A captive audience,” Dad reminded him gently. “It’s a little weird, isn’t it? Being so tied up with someone you’ve never personally met.”

“I’ve met him plenty,” Karkat defended. “Every weekend, even.”

“You know what I’m talking about,” Dad said, waving his hand. “Karkat, you don’t know this kid.”

The truth grated inside of him, but Karkat had nothing to say. He pushed back from the table. “I’m done eating,” he announced, abandoning his uneaten food, his appetite gone. “I’m not that hungry anyway.”

“Karkat,” Dad said, his voice stern. “I’m sorry for upsetting you, but please, stay and eat your dinner.”

“Sorry,” Karkat said, already walking away even as guilt tore at him. He couldn’t take this conversation coming from his dad, of all people. It was bad enough when it was himself voicing the exact hidden thoughts that he’d had in the beginning.

“Karkat!” Dad called after him, but Karkat was already on the stairs, already in his room, the door already locked behind him.

 

 **Day Four**  
It was the coldest morning yet, too cold for frost but nothing like previous colds Karkat had experienced. Still, his classmates treated the 20 degree weather like it was the end of the world. 

“This is awful,” John moaned and pulled his hat low over his head, burying his ears against the chill in the air. 

Karkat was still dressed in only a black sweater and jeans. He was impervious to the cold and proud to rub John’s nose in it. 

“Come on guys,” Karkat said cheerfully, swinging his feet as he took his seat on the bus. The air brakes hissed as the door closed behind him “It’s not even that cold.”

“I assure you, for us this temperature is quite unnatural,” Rose spoke up from beside where Jade was shivering in a shawl thrown over a long dress. Her boots were laced up to her knees. 

Dave was the only on untouched by the cold and he was teasing everyone mercilessly about it. The bus arrived at the school faster than normal, Slick the driver speeding down the frozen roads to get the students to the promise of a heated building. 

School started out slow as even the teachers needed an hour or so to thaw out from the bitter morning. That was fine with Karkat, and as much as he hated meaningless busy work he had to admit completing the drivel gave him plenty of time to think about other things. Like Dave and his ever-present problem that was never far from Karkat’s mind. 

It wasn’t until lunch that all hell broke loose. 

The day might have started out cold but it warmed up quickly once the sun climbed higher in the faded blue sky. Everyone was seated at their normal lunch table before Karkat arrived; he was the last one to take his seat. 

Dave looked spotless today and Karkat couldn’t help but wonder what injuries he was hiding with an old, dull ache of concern. Dave was quiet in a way that made Karkat’s heart pull tight at the ventricles.  
Something must have happened. Jade maybe?

Karkat looked at his friend and saw the helpless guilt in her face. Damn. So today was a bad day, a day when Jane, Roxy, and Jade couldn’t see or hear Dave. It was nearing the full moon so in a way this made sense, but the unfairness of it all crowded its way up the back of Karkat’s throat in words that he had to hold back between his clenched teeth. 

Dave bore the lack of communication well. There was no hint of anything wrong until Roxy cracked a joke that had John laughing.

Dave was laughing too. It didn’t matter that Roxy couldn’t hear him—funny was funny.

Karkat snorted, grinning as he looked from Dave to John, both of those idiots cracking up so hard that they couldn’t breathe. It made his smile. Their laughter was infectious. 

“Cut it out,” Karkat said, grinning so that they knew he didn’t mean it. “I’m trying to study over here and the two of you are distracting me.” he motioned to the open binder in his lap for emphasis.

John’s face froze, fear and uncertainty in his eyes. “Two of you?” He asked, sounding scared as he immediately whipped around to where Dave sat, his eyes frantically searching the air there. “Dave’s here?”

Dave froze, his expression heartbreakingly numb. “John?”

John didn’t answer. The entire table had gone silent, watching in astonishment. 

“John!” Dave shouted, panicked, his cool expression falling away to reveal his fear. 

“Shit!” John cursed, looking frantic. “I… I can’t see him. Why can’t I see him?”

No one said anything. Karkat’s heart felt full of needles. 

“This is a joke, right?” John asked, desperate. “A joke. He’s not here, is he?”

Dave was sitting directly beside his friend. John couldn’t see him.

“John,” Karkat said softly, unsure of what to say. What was there to say? “He’s here.”

John blinked, his blue eyes watering. 

“Okay,” Dave said, his voice rushed. His hands were shaking. “I’m out.”

“Dave, wait!” Karkat called out, but he was too late. 

Dave had already vanished. 

“Fuck,” Rose said, drawing out the word. Dirk said nothing, his face inscrutable. 

“Guys?” John said weakly, looking like he’d start crying as he sniffled. “Why can’t I see him?”

“He’s gone now,” Karkat answered. “He left.”

“Fuck,” Rose said again, growing angry now. “Fuck fuck fuck!”

John looked scared at Rose’s outburst. 

Rose rounded on Karkat, her eyes blazing, the symbol for light shining in her piercing gaze. “Karkat,” she thundered. “You will fix this, do you hear me?”

Karkat met her furious gaze, his eyes steady. “What more do you want me to do?” He demanded, equally angry. “I’ve made promise after promise, and I’ve done task after task. What’s left for me to learn?” The next question came from the heart, drudged up out of his pain. “Why can’t I help him faster?”

“Look inside yourself,” Rose ordered. “You know the answer.”

“I don’t,” Karkat pleaded. “If I knew I’d of fixed this already.” 

“Three things,” Rose reminded him her voice shaking “You need three things.”

“I fucking know!” Karkat nearly yelled. Other students were looking at them now, drawn in by the commotion. Karkat ignored them. 

“What are you missing?” Rose asked, pushing him harder as she probed for the answer. “Think, Karkat, think!”

“I don’t know,” Karkat said, leaning back. His appetite was gone. “I don’t know.”

Rose’s gaze was hard and unforgiving. “Then fucking figure it out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp.... that just happened 
> 
> Much sadness 
> 
> Very tears


	12. How all Things Start

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what I'm talking about-- a new update! Yay!
> 
> New chapter is Up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**Day 3.**  
John didn’t come to school the next day. Neither did Jade. Neither did Dave. The three empty seats on the bus in the morning made Karkat feel sick when he sat down. His stomach churned. 

Rose said nothing about John’s absence. Neither did Rose or Roxy. Dirk just stared out the window. 

“So,” Karkat said. “Are we going to talk about what happened or…”

There was no response. Not even Rose moved. 

Roxy only sighed. “Karkat,” she said. “Give it a rest. Not today, okay?”

That sat wrongly inside him. Today was the day they should be talking about this, but he jerked his chin down in a nod. “Okay,” he said, dejected. 

The day drug on into infinity and nothing changed. 

Dave never showed up. 

 

**Day 2.**  
John was wrong when he said that Dave was too nosey to stay away for long, because the specter wasn’t on the bus the next morning either, though John and Jade were. 

John walked with uncertainly to his seat, shooting glances at the empty space beside Karkat until he spoke up.

“He’s not here,” Karkat answered the unasked question, sullen.

John’s shoulders fell. “Was he here yesterday?”

“No.”

“Damn,” John sighed. “I wanted to say my apologies.”

“For what?” Karkat asked, shrugging. “It’s not like you did anything wrong.”

“That’s for sure what it feels like,” John said, his knee kicking nervously as the bus jolted into motion. “It feels like I’ve betrayed him. He’s my best bro… why me? Why did this have to happen? I could have sworn that I would always have been able to see him.”

The earnest question made Karkat pause. “I don’t know why,” Karkat said, equally confused. He didn’t know why Dave was fading to his friends and that made him afraid. That made him very afraid. 

Karkat saw that same fear reflected in John’s eyes. “He’s fading, isn’t he?” John asked quietly. 

Karkat’s soul rebelled at the truth to the words, but he had to acknowledge the truth when he heard it. Dave was fading. Slowly but surely. He jerked his chin into another short nod, wordless. 

John’s face tightened. His eyes turned stormy, an ethereal blue shining through them as the wind gusted around the bus in a sudden gale. “I don’t know how to help you,” john said, his eyes shining. “But you’re the key to this problem—we all know that by now. It’s you. It has to be you.”

“I never asked for this,” Karkat said. “But I know that you’re right in any fucking case. It’s me. I have to make the difference.”

“How will you do that?” John asked. 

Karkat closed his eyes and remembered the fraying bond that had linked Dave to the shell of his body. As long as that connection remained in place, he could do something about it, couldn’t he? But with time running out, could he figure out how to do it in time to save Dave?

Karkat opened his eyes. His heart was steady. “I think,” he said, “that I have an idea.”

 

**Day 1.**  
Dave came back to school just in time for Karkat to skip all of his morning classes. Rose met him at the huge door to the old gym out back. The oak trees were bare as their brittle branches clashed in the breeze like rattling bones. Rose nodded at him as he slipped inside.

The elusive ghost was leaning against an archery target again, resolutely Not Looking at his friends as Jade outlined the circle in chalk on the floor, tracing over the old designs there. 

“Hey,” Karkat said, walking over to him.

Dave only grunted. He looked sallow, his skin washed out as his edges blurred. 

“How are you doing?” Karkat asked with his heart in his throat. 

Dave just shrugged.

“No,” Karkat said, shaking his head. “That’s not a proper answer, Dave.”

The shade turned to stare at him. Karkat could see himself reflected back in his sunglasses. “What do you want me to say?” Dave said quietly. “I told you weeks ago that this would happen.”

“And I believed you then,” Karkat said. “And I believe you now.”

Dave shrugged again, listless. “Do you think this new circle idea of Rose’s will work?”

“No,” Karkat admitted. “But at the very least it’ll recharge you for another month.”

“Borrowed time,” Dave said, slumping into the target at his side with a frown. “More borrowed time. I’ve been living on nothing but borrowed time for over a year.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Karkat asked, hoarse. “It’s better than having no time, isn’t it?”

“Not according to time,” Dave answered. “Time’s all about the endings.”

Karkat shook his head, rejecting the idea. “No.”

“Karkat.”

“No,” He repeated again. “Dave—”

“Karkat!” Rose ordered as she slung the huge open door shut behind her, interrupting him. The doors slid shut with an echoed bang. “Get over here!”

Karkat turned back to Dave but the ghost had already walked away, intent on the circle. 

Karkat resisted the urge to shout after Dave’s retreating back. Now, he had to focus. The circle needed him to have a clear head. His frustration could contaminate whatever spell Rose had created to wake Dave up, and even those slim odds were enough to for Karkat to take a step back and take reign of his anger. 

He stepped into the circle as Rose lit the candles. Dave was speaking quietly with John, who could clearly see him again and was more subdued than usual. 

“Okay,” Rose said as she lit the last candle. The small flame illuminated her face as she grinned. “Let’s begin.”

Karkat felt a thrill of excitement run through him at the words. Even with all of the months that had passed since he’d been initiated, the excitement of the magic was still infectious. It was a piece of something bigger than himself, a connection to these other kids around him, and with the power of the full moon running in his veins Rose called the circle to order. 

“By the authority of a Seer of Light,” Rose called out, “I hereby seal us away.”

The gym fell away, but this time Karkat wasn’t afraid. Jade was looking wicked, her wild hair pulled back neatly behind her as her eyes shone. One by one, everyone summoned their aspects to them. A breeze ran through the circle, followed quickly by the warm glow of life. Something flickered around Dirk like lightning, heart shining in his eyes. 

Karkat followed last, calling blood to him in a flash of wet heat. He wore his aspect like a shroud, a second skin, keeping it close at the surface, ready for action.

Rose was glowing as if lit from within, subtle as a dying star. She’d never looked so powerful before as she began to chant in the broodfester tongues, her screeching voice firm with confidence as she pronounced the impossible grammar with ease. Her tongue never once stumbled. 

Karkat couldn’t speak in Rose’s dread language, but he half-understood the gist of what she was saying. The first part started out the same a Rose used the circle’s power to ‘recharge’ Dave’s ghostly battery. 

_Specter, shade, bind yourself to this mortal plane. Come out of the veil, be drawn into the light and away from the darkness. Let us both see and hear you from now till the next time the moon wanes. Draw your power from us, let the circle lend you the strength to carry on._

Then Rose’s voice changed, shifting into something lilting as she began her spell. 

_Dave, my cousin, my brother, let us help_  
_Mend you of your wounds, mend you of your hurts._  
_Dave, your insecurities, let us help._  
_Let us sooth what’s been broken and ruined._  
_Let us heal body and mind, reverse bond._  
_Follow our voices back to yourself, Dave._  
_Don’t let one night of hurt end your future._  
_Dave, we love you. We miss you. Come back home._  
_In all the dead twilights let us not find_  
_You down some lonesome dark path, beneath the_  
_Carnivorous face of a veil that lies._  
_This is not a place for you, follow us._  
_Follow us back from here. Listen to me._  
_Dave, dearest brother, I seal you back here!_

_____ _

It was like all of the air was sucked from the room. The candles flickered, and then went out at the expulsion of power that rocked the circle. Karkat’s knees felt weak, like he’d just finished running a marathon. The entire circle was pitch black. Karkat couldn’t see anyone else and felt his heart kick upwards in sudden fear before Rose illuminated the circle with her aspect, holding a palmful of light between her fingers.

_____ _

“Is everyone alright?” She called out fearfully. 

_____ _

Karkat coughed, finding his voice. “Dave?” He called out, panicked. “Where’s Dave?”

_____ _

“Here,” Dave answered, sounding shaken. 

_____ _

Rose looked crestfallen even as everyone else chimed in that they were okay. “It didn’t work.”

_____ _

“Was that a fucking sonnet?” Dave asked, grinning to try and lift the mood. 

_____ _

“Yes,” Rose answered. “I thought using a structured meter would be best.”

_____ _

Karkat was crushed. For just a second, before the lights had come back on, he’d thought Rose’s spell might have worked. 

_____ _

But there was Dave, looking solid now, but still here, still a shade. 

_____ _

Rose quickly disbanded the circle and as the normal gym melted back into sight, Karkat let out the breath he’d been holding. Jade began to pick up the dead candles with her tongue between her teeth. 

_____ _

“Why didn’t it work?” Rose was already complaining, confused. “I thought I had everything right.”

_____ _

Karkat looked to Dave, equally confused though he still wasn’t surprised that it hadn’t worked. 

_____ _

Dave looked startled. “I’m not sure,” he answered. “But I felt… something.”

_____ _

“Something?” Karkat said flatly.

_____ _

“It’s hard to explain,” Dave said, and both Karkat and Rose listened closely to the shade’s answer. “I was listening to your voice. I felt it calling me, asking me to follow, but I had no path to walk down. There was no direction to go. I was lost as a spinning compass.” Dave looked away, his voice low. “I tried to make it work,” he said, dejected. “I really did.”

_____ _

“I believe you,” Rose said, blinking back frustrated tears. “Dammit.”

_____ _

“Rose, its okay,” Dave told her, and everyone else had gathered around to watch. Jade’s green eyes were heavy with unshed tears. “It’s going to be okay.”

_____ _

Karkat’s eyes felt wet.

_____ _

“Uh, guys?” Jane spoke up, hesitant and scared. “I’m not sure if now is the right time to say this, but Dave?”

_____ _

“Yeah?” Dave said, blinking at her.

_____ _

Jane waited an abnormally long time to answer him, her voice shaking. “I still can’t see you.”

_____ _

Silence fell as Karkat’s stomach dropped down to his feet. He felt sick. 

_____ _

“You…” Dave trailed off, his face paling further even as his expression smoothed out into nothingness. “You can’t… see me?”

_____ _

Jane didn’t answer him. She stood there looking around for her missing friend. “Dave?”

_____ _

Dave shook his head. All of him was shaking. It started with his head and traveled down his spine till everything on him trembled. “Jane, no…” he said softly, like he couldn’t believe it. His arm reached out to her, then fell back to his side, that hand in a fist. 

_____ _

Karkat’s heart ached. “Dave—”

_____ _

“Don’t,” Dave choked out. “ _Stay where you are._ ”

_____ _

Karkat stepped forward anyway. 

_____ _

Dave shook his head again. His eyes looked like holes pressed into his skull. Not even the red shone out of the blackness. 

_____ _

“Dave,” Karkat said, desperate. “Don’t do this.”

_____ _

“No,” Dave said, stuttering. His teeth were chattering. “I… I”ve got to go.”

_____ _

“Dave,” Karkat pleaded. 

_____ _

“No,” Dave said again, and then he melted away, gone off to wherever it was he went when he jumped out of the mortal plane. 

_____ _

“DAMMIT!” Karkat cursed, and he wheeled around on Jane. “Are you sure you couldn’t see him?”

_____ _

“I’m sure,” Jane answered, shaken. “Karkat, what happened?”

_____ _

Karkat’s mind was racing. He replayed Dave and Rose’s words in his mind. The spell had failed. Jane couldn’t even see Dave’s shade anymore. They’d failed.

_____ _

He’d failed. 

_____ _

Bitterness rose up inside Karkat like a wave. It was unfair. All of this was fucking unfair. 

_____ _

Rose was staring at him like she was expecting him to do something about it. Waiting for him to figure this out, urging him on from the side with her eyes shining faintly. “Karkat,” she said. “Do something.”

_____ _

“What the fuck do you want me to do?” Karkat asked, running his hand through his hair and resisting the urge to pull it out. 

_____ _

“Fix this,” Rose begged. “Please, fix this. I know you know how.”

_____ _

The entire room was looking at him. The silence echoed in the stillness, filling Karkat’s ears with static. 

_____ _

“Please,” he begged. “I don’t know how.”

_____ _

“You do,” Rose told him. “You have to.”

_____ _

The words swirled around him, mixing with the faces of all of his friends. Karkat’s insides were churning, filled with fire like hot blood, like the aspect that still settled uneasily below his skin when he called it to him. 

_____ _

He knew blood. He’d figured that part out when Dave had showed him how to summon his aspect. But did he know how to be a Knight?

_____ _

Karkat felt like his eyes had been opened as he grasped at the meaning that slipped like light through his mind. He grabbed hold of it, the answer he’d been searching for.

_____ _

“Dirk,” Karkat gasped out. “Drive me to the hospital. I’ve got to see Dave.”

_____ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shit is going down next chapter mwahahahahahahahaha 
> 
> I'm sorry for the shorter update, but I had to break up what happens next
> 
> also i suck at writing sonnets apparently and i agonized over what i wrote for hours before deciding that it was ok


	13. Its just like Dreaming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm Back!!!!!!!!! With a New Chapter nonetheless! 
> 
> Enjoy :)

**Day one.**  
They left immediately after school ended and the bus dropped them off at their houses. It took only fifteen minutes for Dirk to appear in Karkat’s driveway, and the car had barely rolled to a stop before Karkat pulled open the heavy door and slammed it behind him. “Let’s fucking go.”

Dirk drove twenty over the limit down the entire stretch of twisting back highway. They didn’t pass another car for miles, and Karkat didn’t even see another living soul until John caught up to them in his dad’s suburban, carrying everyone else. 

Dirk didn’t say a word the whole time, his mouth a grim line carved into his face as the convertible gained speed. 

Karkat’s heart was pounding long before Dirk was forced to slow back down as they hit the city limits. The hospital looked exactly as always from the outside. The sky had turned overcast, dreary and gray with the promise of afternoon thunderstorms. The wind was bitter cold as it skimmed across the bare branches and looped through the empty spaces around the parked cars. Dirk drifted the convertible to a halt and put it in park. An instant later John’s car was idling beside them and everyone else poured out.

Dave was missing. That was okay. Karkat suspected the shade was off wallowing in his own misery somewhere, but that was expected. Jane’s face was already tear-streaked from sobbing. 

“Wipe your eyes,” Karkat told her gently. “This ends now.”

Rose’s eyes glinted with hope as she fretted. “We can’t sneak everyone inside again,” she said. “Not after last time. They’ll be bound to be suspicious.”

“All of you can wait in the waiting room,” Karkat said. “I need to be alone with him.”

“Bullshit,” Dirk said, expressionless. “I won’t be left out of this. He’s my brother.”

“Fine,” Karkat said, “Dave can kick you out himself once he gets here.”

“You’re going to call him?” John asked, curious. 

“Not yet,” Karkat answered, squinting at the tan brick building, picturing Dave sleeping inside. “But I will.”

They made it inside with little trouble. Dirk had made sure that they were all on Dave’s visitation list and the nurses on staff had no choice but to let them all through into the waiting area.

Rose pressed a small bottle into his palm. “Your alibi,” she whispered. “If this works.”

He curled his fingers over the glass vial. He put it in his pocket. Only Karkat and Dirk went alone into Dave’s empty room.

The scene itself was untouched. Dave lay still in his bland bed cot, breathing gently as the monitors around him beeped. 

Karkat closed the door behind them.

Dirk stared at his sleeping brother. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to talk to him,” Karkat answered grimly. “Then, I’m going to try something.”

“What will you do?” Dirk asked. “It’s not going to hurt him, will it?”

“I don’t know,” Karkat admitted, biting at his lower lip. “I imagine it’ll be as easy as waking up from a bad dream, but who really knows?”

Dirk’s blank expression fractured, naked panic in his face. “I don’t know,” he said. “Like this, he doesn’t feel pain. What if on the other side it’s worse than this? What if it hurts?”

“Is this really better than being awake?” Karkat challenged, running a hand through his hair as he motioned at Dave’s still body. “He’s running out of time, Dirk.” Already Jane couldn’t see him. Who was next? Roxy? Jade?

“I know,” Dirk admitted. “I’m just scared. This is the one thing I can’t protect him from.”

“It’s okay,” Karkat told him comfortingly, his eyes watering. “You don’t need to protect him anymore.”

Dirk’s lips trembled. “Do it,” he said. 

Karkat closed his eyes and concentrated, feeling for where a part of Dave remained lodged inside him as he summoned the shade to him. “Dave,” he asked. “Come here.”

There was no response, so Karkat pushed harder, feeling the ghost’s stubborn resistance. “You promised,” Karkat reminded him through gritted teeth as he pulled again. “That you would always come when I called, Dave, and I need you now.”

There was a shiver in the air, an exhale. Dave faded slowly into sight like a gray-tintype photograph. There was no color to him at all and his edges looked misty. His shades were black holes covering his eyes. “What do you fuckin’ _want_ from me, Karkat?” He asked, his voice dark and tired.

“Dave,” Karkat said, surprised at the ragged sight of him. It was like the ghost had given up. “What _happened_ to you?”

Dave looked down at himself and grimaced. “I… I don’t know,” he said. “I just feel weak.” His face flickered up to Karkat’s, wavering and insubstantial. “It’s taking all I have just to talk with you.”

Fear slid its way in-between Karkat’s bones like frost creeping over dead grass. 

“I think we need to have a talk,” Karkat said. “A private one. Just you and me.”

Dave’s gaze flickered to his brother, who stood like a statue at his body’s side. “Dirk,” he said. “Shove off for a minute, won’t you?”

“No,” Dirk answered. “I’m not leaving you.”

“Please,” Dave gasped out, the word broken, and Dirk’s face shuttered closed. His expression was like ice. 

“Okay,” Dirk relented. “But you only get ten minutes, then I’ll be back here.”

“Thank you,” Karkat said as Dave nodded. 

Dirk quit the room. The door closed behind him and left a stillness behind. The monitors kept up their steady beeping. 

“Dave,” Karkat began.

“Karkat,” Dave said.

Karkat steeled himself. His heart was trembling inside of him. “Dave,” he said again. “What do you think of me?”

“What?” Dave asked, clearly thrown off-guard by the unexpected direction. 

“Do you like it when I spend time with you?” Karkat asked. 

“Yes,” Dave answered. 

“Do you like it when I come over here and read to you and touch your hand?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like it when I summon you over to my house just to talk?” Karkat asked. 

“Yes,” Dave answered. 

Karkat continued his questioning, relentless. “Do you know that I’m in love with you?”

Dave paused, his face looking choked. His hands shook. “Yes,” he hissed, nearly crying, or as close to it as he could get in his astral form. 

Karkat had to swallow down his own heart. His pulse was like a drum in his ears as he kept up the simple questions, cutting through the bullshit. “Do you want to wake up?”

“Yes,” Dave answered, vehement. 

Karkat swallowed thickly. “Do you love me back?”

Dave didn’t answer. 

“Do you trust me?” Karkat asked, shaking. “Dammit, Dave, answer me!”

“Yes,” Dave admitted brokenly, his entire body shaking. “Yes, I love you, Karkat, goddammit!”

“Do you trust me?” Karkat demanded to know, everything inside of his trembling. 

Dave lifted up his blackened eyes to meet his own. “Yes,” he said simply. 

And that was the third thing Karkat learned. Rose had been right after all, because now it all seemed so clear to Karkat. He knew what he had to do.

“Come closer,” he told the shade.

Dave stepped closer as if pulled by invisible strings. His knees somehow didn’t bend yet he still moved closer. 

Karkat nodded, his mouth dry. His hands were trembling as he summoned his aspect to himself. “Blood,” he said. “I call on thee.”

The aspect answered in a flood. In his mind, Karkat stood on the edge of a vast cliff. An ocean of blood churned below him, a fetid, hot wind in his face that smelled of copper and tin. Red light sparked off his fingertips as Karkat took a step forward and fell off the edge of the cliff, giving himself to the sea below as he finally surrendered to his aspect. 

The blood closed over his head right as he opened his eyes. 

His hands felt like they were burning. The taste of blood coated his tongue as he leaned forward.

Dave’s sleeping face stared peacefully back at him. Karkat’s eyes flickered up to the shade that was stooped over his body, close enough that Karkat should have been able to feel his body heat if he’d been corporeal. Karkat could see it, the glowing red core of Dave’s shade, irrevocably linked to his body on the bed. The bond was fragile, frail, frayed. One wrong move might sever the two of them forever. 

This was a task that called for complicated blood magic of the highest kind. 

So Karkat simply reached out and grabbed hold of the core of the ghost’s self with hands that still bled with red light. For the first time, Karkat was able to feel Dave as a specter, and he felt cold, and burning, and ethereal as Karkat laid his hand against a human soul, seeking where the line that tied him to his body was. 

At the touch Dave’s form fell apart. He became nothing more than a cloud of light that settled over his body as Karkat guided the shade back to his body, speaking all the while. “Dave,” he said, commanding it. “Be reunited with yourself, there’s no need for you to remain split like this, you’re safe now. I’m here. It’s okay, it’s all okay Dave, just listen to me. Hear me. Follow the sound of my voice.”

Karkat held Dave’s essence cupped in his hands as he guided him back to his body, right over his heart as he called down the shade. He held Dave’s soul in his hands. The cloud of glowing light settled over his form like mist, and then sank below the skin. Karkat tasted blood in his mouth as he leaned in the scant few inches to press his lips lightly against Dave’s as the last of the magic bled away. 

All at once the monitors went wild. Dave’s heartrate skyrocketed, climbing well past 140, beating erratically. An alarm began to sound, something high and piercing. Karkat pulled back, his heart racing as the door burst open and Dirk ran in.

“What did you do?” Dirk demanded, his face wild. 

“I—I,” Karkat stammered as a nurse raced in.

On the bed, Dave began to seize, every limb locked up and shaking senselessly. 

“Out! Both of you, out!” The nurse ordered as more medical professionals poured in, drawn by the siren still screaming overhead. 

“What’s happening?” Dirk asked, his eyes blown wide with fear. 

“Get out!” The doctor yelled at them, focused solely on Dave’s body as he seized again, spit at the corner of his mouth.

Dirk opened his mouth to argue, but Karkat locked his hands on Dirk’s shoulders and pulled him out of the room. The door slammed behind them. The sterile hallway was empty, the sound of utter chaos behind the closed door.

“What did you do?” Dirk yelled at him, his hands in fists at his sides. 

Karkat held up his hands, placating. Strangely, he didn’t feel afraid. He felt oddly calm. “Listen,” he said.

Dirk punched him across the face. Dirk knew how to land a solid hit and he put his body behind the blow. Karkat saw an explosion of white behind his eyes as his brain went fuzzy around the edges with pain. His hands immediately flew up to cover the wound as he reeled, struggling to keep his balance as the world tilted oddly. 

His hands came away bloody when he lowered them from his aching jaw. His very teeth felt bruised down to their roots. “What the _fuck_ , Dirk?”

Dirk nearly growled at him, his eyes flashing dangerously. “ _What did you do to my brother?_ ”

“I,” Karkat said, leaning away from the furious Dirk. He blinked and the hallway swam slowly back into focus as his body decided not to pass out. God, even his eyes hurt after a hit like that. “I… I think I woke him up.”

“You what?” Dirk asked, short and fast. His breath came in pants. 

“I think it fucking worked,” Karkat repeated, clutching his hurt face. There was blood on his hands but he couldn’t feel where his skin had broken open. He tasted blood as well, but that was probably from before. Then his tongue found where his teeth had cut into his cheek and probed the raw feeling of it with a twinge of illness. Shit. 

“I… he… he was having a seizure,” Dirk stuttered, confused. His hands were still in fists. 

Karkat nodded along a stiff neck. “I’m guessing he’s not waking up as gently as we hoped,” Karkat guessed shrewdly. “But he’s fighting now. He’s trying to get back to us.”

“I…” Dirk said, looking at the door, caught in the middle of some pale rapture. “I’ve got to get in there.”

“No you don’t,” Karkat growled out, grabbing for Dirk’s hand, wary of getting punched again for his efforts. 

But Dirk let Karkat lead him back to the waiting room, stumbling the entire way. 

Rose jumped to her feet at the sight of them. “What’s happening,” she demanded. “We saw the doctors running in your direction.”

“Yikes, Karkat,” Roxy sucked in her breath between her teeth, hissing. “What happened to your face?”  
Karkat grimaced and Dirk had the decency to look guilty about it. “I think it worked,” Karkat spoke the words into the suddenly quiet waiting room that was crowded with his friends. “I think I did it.”

“You certainly did something,” Dirk spat at him, his hands in fists again. “Vantas, I swear if you hurt him…”

“Dirk, relax,” Roxy ordered, dragging Karkat down by his arm to look closely at his jawline. “Did you do this?” She demanded, staring at her cousin.

Dirk didn’t answer.

“He did,” Karkat admitted, feeling the soreness there. He wondered how badly it looked if it had already bruised. It was feeling swollen. 

Roxy clucked her tongue. “At least he was gentle with you,” she mentioned as she examined the injury.

“Gentle!” Karkat burst out. “Gentle my ass! He punched me in the fucking face!”

“He didn’t break your nose, or split your lip, or hit you in the eyes,” Roxy listed off the places on her fingers sympathetically. “Plus you’re still conscious. If he wanted to hurt you, really hurt you, he would have.”  
Karkat looked at Dirk, who was silently seething, every line and hard muscle of him promising violence. Maybe Roxy was right. 

“Anyway,” Karkat said, wiping blood from his hands on his shirt. “Like I said, I think it fucking worked. I think Dave’s waking up.”

Rose put her hands over her mouth. Jade gasped. John just looked ecstatic as a sudden breeze ran through the stagnant room, cooling Karkat’s still fevered skin. 

Rose turned on her heel and marched over to the help desk. “I’d like an update on my cousin,” she demanded.

The nurse looked up, startled. Her eyes wide. “The doctor is busy now but he’ll be with you as soon as he can,” she said. 

Rose frowned, unsatisfied, but she returned to the group without a word. 

“Hey,” Roxy whispered to him. “How’d you do it?”

“I’m not sure,” Karkat whispered back. “Blood magic? I just called him down and he answered.”

“I fuckin’ knew it,” Roxy said, extending her hand at Jane. “Pay up.”

Jane, caught in the act, looked startled. “Not yet,” she said, looking panicked. 

Karkat was incredulous. “You fuckers had a bet?”

“Only a small one,” Roxy joked, her face strained as she stared up the hallway to where Dave was. “God, I wish I was in there.”

“And now,” Rose said, sinking back into her chair. “We wait.” She looked dead at Karkat. “And we pray that you’re right.”

…

It took close to four whole hours for the haggard doctor to appear. He seemed unsurprised to find a horde of anxious high schoolers crowding in the waiting room.

“Well?” Rose demanded, standing up. “How is he?”

“I…” The doctor trailed off. His shoulders lifted in a shrug, “We can’t explain it, but… Dave, he’s waking up.”

Rose collapsed back into her chair, her stark expression fracturing. 

Dirk stepped closer, incessant. “When can we see him?”

“He’s still unconscious,” the doctor warned. “But brain activity is skyrocketing and he’s responding to stimuli. He’s still got a fight ahead of him… but in my professional opinion Dave Strider should fully regain some degree of awareness soon.”

“Awareness?” Dirk questioned, sounding scared. 

The doctor stared at where John was leaning closer to overhear. “Maybe we should leave for a moment,” he mentioned. “Dirk, you are Dave’s sole guardian. I can’t discuss these details in public.”

“Whatever you say to me, they can hear,” Dirk said unflinchingly. His eyes gleamed under the fluorescent lights. 

The doctor nodded calmly, rolling with it. “We still don’t know how the damage he suffered will affect him. Some patients with similar injuries have permanent mobility issues or lack of motor control, and that’s just from his broken spine. We don’t know how the brain damage will affect him. By all rights, he shouldn’t have ever woken up.”

Karkat’s heart began to beat faster again. “But he’s waking up now,” he spoke up. “That’s good isn’t it?”

The doctor leveled a frank look at him. “Yes,” he said. “Whatever else might happen, having him awake is always a better alternative to having him comatose.”

Karkat took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He could hear his pulse in his eardrums, roaring. He opened his eyes again, grounding himself. He felt weak and shaky and his face was really beginning to hurt. 

Rose was fanning herself, hyperventilating. “Are you sure he’ll wake up?”

“As sure as I can be, given the unusual circumstances,” the doctor said, straightening his white sleeves. “Now, which two of you were in the room when he first began to show signs of wakefulness?”

Karkat fidgeted while Dirk remained expressionless. “Uh,” he admitted. “We were. Me and Dirk.”

The doctor looked at him. “Did you see or notice anything different right before he began seizing?” he asked. “Did either of you do anything that might have caused this?” He looked over the crowd. “What made you all decide to visit today?”

Busted. 

Karkat remembered the bottle in his pocket. “This did,” he said, pulling the small vial out. 

The doctor reached out and took the glass, unstoppering the top and waving it under his nose. “Smelling salts,” he said, surprised as he wrinkled his nose with disgust. “Quite pungent too.” He handed the vial back to Karkat, an odd look in his face. “I never would have believed it if I hadn’t just witnessed it for myself. You might have just saved your friend’s life.”

Karkat felt it then, the incredulous relief. He’d done it. He’d done it. 

Dave was waking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy hell this hits hard and it just _keeps hitting_. Believe it or not there's only one chapter left, then the epilogue. 
> 
> Look at how far we've come in this fic! I'm so proud of these kids T0T 
> 
> Sorry about the ending, but I had to break it off to preserve the final chapter in all its glory. Thoughts?
> 
> Anyway, look! We did it! Dave is waking up! (and I'm a firm believer in medical correctness in my writing so that's why the waking up is both taking so long and not pretty. that's what real life is like)


	14. Sing with me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really should have waited to post last week and combined this with the last chapter, but its too late for that now so here is --at last-- the final chapter of Call down the Shade. 
> 
>  
> 
> I hope you're ready because I'm not. T-T

**Day [redacted]**  
Karkat didn’t know what time it was. He wasn’t sure if it was still Friday or is the day had lapsed into Saturday with the passing of midnight. All he knew that out of the slatted windows he couldn’t see the stars. Karkat was still at the hospital, that much was sure. And he wasn’t planning on leaving anytime soon. 

Rose and John and Jade and Roxy and Jane had each contacted their parents to let them know that they were staying at the hospital until they knew more about Dave’s condition. Likewise Karkat had texted his own dad, keeping things brief and to the point as his fingers shook so much he could barely get the text out. 

Dave was waking up. That thought eclipsed everything else. Every three seconds the realization would hit him all over again, just as fresh and unbelievable as it had been the first time.

A nurse had taken pity on him and had given Karkat some ice for the painful bruise forming on the side of his jaw as he waited, the seconds ticking by agonizingly slow.

Apparently this wasn’t like how it happened in the movies. Dave wouldn’t flutter open his eyes and look around all confused and ask why the fuck was he in a hospital, no matter how much Karkat wished things would be that easy. 

It happened slowly with a lot of false starts and steps backwards in between the separate parts of waking up. Karkat stayed awake the whole time. Like hell was he risking the chance of sleeping through this, and with the nest of snakes living in his belly sleep right now was an impossible thought. Everyone else was also kept alert by a connected string of worried anxiety and stress. And hope. 

The clock high on the wall ticked away each passing second, but its pale face was blurry every time Karkat blinked at it, from exhaustion or the ever-present edge of unshed tears he wasn’t sure. 

Eventually the doctor wandered back into the waiting room. Karkat lifted his head to watch him as the man cleared his throat to address the suddenly much more awake room. Karkat could feel the ball of hope squatting in the back of his throat, painful to swallow around. 

“Dave Strider has regained consciousness,” the man said as Rose shot to her feet, John a half-second behind her. “He’s amazingly coherent and only a little bit confused, which is to be expected.”

Karkat blinked as a wave of relief filled him. It was over. They’d won.

“When can we see him?” Jane asked, eager to get to Dave’s side and help with her magic. 

“I’m only permitting Dirk to see him at this time,” the doctor said, turning to the other Strider brother who stood in the corner of the room. 

Dork’s face didn’t change as he shook his head. “All of us,” he said, his lips quaking. “Not just me. We all need to see him.”

“Now we wouldn’t want to overwhelm him,” the doctor cautioned. 

“Does he have his memory?” Dirk asked flatly.

“Most of it,” the doctor said. “He doesn’t know how long he’s been here or what happened to him, but he remembers his past quite well it seems.”

“So he’ll remember all of us,” Dirk argued. “We need to get in there.”

The words drove a dagger through Karkat’s heart, a sharp blade made of ice and fear. 

What if Dave didn’t remember him? What if he couldn’t remember anything about being a shade? What if the last year was nothing but a blank slate for him?

What if Dave didn’t know him?

After all this time spent trying to wake the shade, Karkat had never once thought about what might happen if Dave didn’t remember him. He’d taken for granted the knowledge that he’d become imprinted in Dave’s life deeply enough that the very idea of all of their shared time being erased was unfathomable. 

So why did Karkat feel so afraid?

Rose grabbed his hand and tightly squeezed his fingers like she knew exactly what he was thinking as his staccato heart crashed inside of him. 

The doctor considered them silently, a group of teary-eyed, determined high schoolers, then sighed. “I don’t suppose I can talk you out of this,” he said. “And it _is_ an unusual case. I’m sure we can bend the rules a little for Dave’s wellbeing.”

Karkat barely heard the doctor’s words. His abrupt terror nearly consumed him before he fought it back with a wave of cold resolution. If this was the price to pay for waking Dave up… so be it. 

Karkat walked behind his eager friends. Dirk was in the lead, John and Jade tied behind him. The doctor opened the door to Dave’s familiar room with a delighted flourish, gently calling out, “Dave, there’s some people here to see you.”

This was it. 

Karkat craned his head to see into the room. An army of nurses surrounded Dave, and for the first time ever, his real, actual red eyes were wide open. He looked confused, but Karkat saw his face break into a smile when he caught sight of his brother.

“Dirk,” Dave said, and Karkat heard his voice, his real, beautiful voice. It was hoarse, nearly a whisper, awful and scratchy like his voicebox hadn’t been used in months, but it rang like music to Karkat. He felt like crying as Dave continued, his voice slightly slurred and slow. “I was in a fuckin’, like, a coma, bro. A goddamn coma.”

Dirk wasn’t trying to stop the tears that were rolling down his face as he fell to his knees beside Dave’s bed. “Dave,” he said, awestruck. “You’re awake.”

Dave let out a rusty laugh. “Yeah, bro,” he said, grinning. Then his face fell as concern overtook his familiar features. “How long was I out for?” His voice was quieter now, subdued. 

“Don’t worry about that,” Dirk said, waving away the question as Dave’s face wandered over his other friends. Jade was also crying, fuck it—everyone was crying. 

“John,” Dave said, sounding surprised as his eyes moved behind Dirk to everyone else in the room. “You’re here. And Rose. Jade. Roxy. Jane.” Dave looked happy before he spotted Karkat luring in the background, and then he looked confused again, like he was trying to place something that was on the tip of his tongue. 

Karkat swore his heart stopped beating as Dave asked, slowly, “I know you, don’t I?”

That was when the tears started dripping down Karkat’s face as he nodded and said encouragingly, “Yes, you do.”

Dave just looked even more confused. 

The doctor was quick to intervene. “Now,” he said, with no idea that technically Karkat and Dave had never met each other outside of spirit realm bullshit. “It might take him a while for everything to settle into place.”

“That’s okay,” Karkat said, meaning it. It hurt so much to speak that he could hardly force the words out. “I don’t care. He’s awake… That’s all that fucking matters to me.” It felt like Karkat was coming apart at the seams. 

Dave didn’t remember him.

Rose looked devastated and Roxy wouldn’t meet his eyes but that was okay. Everything was okay. Dave was awake—that’s all that mattered. He’d done it. He’d done it. If this was the price, Karkat would pay it in full. He’d forget the unfairness, forget the cruelty of admitting that Dave loved Karkat back only to lose him, shove away the shocking bitterness that rose up in him as his blood turned to ice. 

“No,” Dave said, surprising everybody. “I _do_ know you, I know I do. You were here. You read that fuckin’ book about rabbits to me. I remember your voice. I heard it in my dreams.” Dave blinked at him, his red eyed gleaming as he said, slowly, “Karkat?”

Karkat didn’t dare to breathe. 

“Karkat,” Dave said, more sure now. “That’s it. I remember you. God, I was, I…. Oh!” Dave shuddered, his hands shaking. “I… I’m remembering. It’s been a year, hasn’t it? It’s snowing outside.” The blinds to his room were drawn, Dave couldn’t see outside, but somehow he still knew about the snow as he went on. “It’s not august anymore, and I, I…”

“Don’t try too hard to remember,” Dirk said softly, laying his hand over Dave’s. “We have time for all that later.”

“Oh—Fuck,” Dave said, hyperventilating. _“Time._ ” he looked at Rose, and her violet eyes held just the faintest possible glow from the sigil of Light, just bright enough shine as all the proof Dave needed. “Shit.”

“Dave? Dave, it’s okay, it’s okay, look at me,” Dirk said, and Dave was staring at his brother, his eyes wide and bare. “You’re okay. Everything is okay.”

Dave was trembling. 

Karkat pushed his way through the crowd surrounding Dave until he stood right at the edge of Dave’s bed. The entire room held its breath as Dave reached out and grabbed Karkat’s hand tightly enough that it hurt. Dave touched him, was touching him, oh God, this was real, it was happening it--

Karkat’s heart held still at the touch, not daring to hope.

“I remember,” Dave said, squeezing his hand. “I remember everything. Bro. The hospital. The school, the fucking circle, me… you.” Dave trailed off, not caring that to the doctors and nurses he was talking utter nonsense. To them he’d earned the right to speak gibberish. Karkat understood, and that’s all that mattered. 

“I’m awake,” Dave said, awestruck. “Karkat… you did it. I’m awake.”

And then Dave smiled at him and Karkat felt his heart soaring, Dave was alive, he was awake, everything would be okay now and for once life was a shining thing without the veil of death hovering over Karkat’s head, and it was like he was standing on the moon watching the sun peek around the crust of the planet, so bright was Dave’s smile, it was like the sun, until Dave’s face fell again as he caught sight of the red-purple lump on Karkat’s jaw.

“What the fuck happened to your face?” Dave asked, concerned, and Karkat laughed.

Dirk laughed with him, and then John chimed in. soon the entire room was laughing, helpless tears running down their faces as Dave held Karkat’s hand like he would never let it go.

And at last, Karkat was standing with his friends laughing, and Dave was laughing with him, his hand held tightly in Karkat’s, and it was all frighteningly, beautifully real as outside the dark window the snow continued to fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "flips table"
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Okay what did you think??? What a moving story we've made here. I don"t have the words to say how thankful I am at the reception this fic has gotten. This one is for all of you readers out there-- thank you. Keep being awesome. 
> 
> Remember, this will have quite a lengthy epilogue tacked on after this. The story's not quite over yet. I'll post the epilogue as soon as it's done but it'll probably take a week or so to finish it. 
> 
> And for my sister, ActuallyGenericlightbulb.... AG, I have no words. Thank you for sticking with me throughout this crazy idea and reading all of my crappy chapters before I edited them into shape. Thanks sis. <3


	15. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! My life kind of fell apart for a little while there but everything in on track again and that means....... epilogue time!!!!!!!!

Epilogue

**Day unknown ******

********

It was the first day of school after winter break and both nothing and everything had changed as Karkat climbed onto the school bus. There was an inch of snow on the ground dusted lightly over the dead leaf litter. The trees were bare and stark against the white winter sky as the Slick and his school bus bounced down the road along the route to pick up students. 

****

Karkat sat in his usual seat, on pins and needles as he waited for the bus to turn that last bend in the road. John was in front of him, looking equally nervous as the bus rounded the bend and the end of the Strider’s long driveway came into view.

****

There were two people waiting by the crooked mailbox, one stomping his feet to keep out to cold as their breath fogged in the chill air. 

****

Karkat’s heart was pounding as the door opened and the brothers climbed aboard the bus. The county was too poor to afford a bus that was handicap accessible, and there was a long moment of wait as Dave fitfully navigated the steep stairs with Dirk supporting him in case he faltered, still uncertain on his arm canes as he made his way to the back of the bus. 

****

The driver stopped him for a moment. “It’s good to have you back, kid,” Slick said, his voice gruff. 

****

Dave looked at him and grinned as the entire bus held its breath.

****

“Hell yeah, man. It’s good to be back,” Dave said, and Karkat’s shoulders relaxed a little at the familiar sound of Dave’s voice. 

****

Dave carefully picked his way down the aisle, greeting each of the students on the bus like old friends until he reached the very back where John, Jade, Roxy, Rose, Jane, and Karkat were waiting. His face split into a smile when he saw that his seat was open and waiting for him.

****

Karkat held still as Dave neglected the open seat that he and Dirk normally occupied in favor of sitting next to him. The bus jolted back into motion as Dave fought to get himself situated in the cramped bus seat with legs that didn’t quite obey the command to bend properly. 

****

John didn’t hesitate, jumping forward with his questions. “Are you ready for the new semester?”

****

“I was born ready,” Dave answered, deadpan. He looked at Karkat, his face unreadable. “Are you ready for this, Karkat?”

****

Ready for what? There was something unsaid that lingered in Dave’s question, something that Karkat couldn’t quite piece together. He gulped and nodded his head, his fingers tight on the knees of his jeans as Karkat sat back and let the conversation swell around him, Dave’s attention swept away by a dozen other people as Karkat faded into the background, content with just the knowledge that he had Dave at his side as he soaked up the happy moment.

****

Dave Strider was back.

****

…

****

 

****

Karkat sat in class bored out of his mind. 

****

Dave was now behind them in school, taking classes he’d missed while in the hospital. The plan was to stick with the old schedule this semester, and then take his entire missed year over the summer so next year he’d be all caught up and on the path to graduate with everyone else. 

****

For what it meant, Karkat felt lonely in class now without Dave to pester him and draw dicks over his paper. It wasn’t until the lunch bell rang that they saw each other again.

****

Dave had attracted quite the crowd in the lunch room as everyone welcomed him back, teachers and students alike vying to greet him in person. The crowds slacked off as everyone disbanded to their own tables to eat, and when Karkat slid into his seat Dave shot him a grin from across the table. 

****

The expression was slightly shy. “Hey.”

****

“Hey,” Karkat answered back automatically, his mind flashing back to those weeks Dave had spent awake in the hospital learning to adjust to life with a body that wasn’t quite as put together as it should have been, Karkat at his side every day but distant, set apart. Waking up had driven a wall between them, one that Karkat didn’t know how to climb on his own. He tried just a little harder to bridge that gap, praying for some hint of recognition from Dave. “How are you feeling today?”

****

Dave’s expression cracked, showing a hint of the turmoil underneath his shades as he cut a look at this brother and leaned away from where Dirk was speaking with John, closer to Karkat to whisper, his words heartbreakingly honest. “I’m feeling tired,” he said. “I was exhausted before I reached the end of my driveway this morning.”

****

Karkat’s heart was in his throat, beating heavy with sympathy. “I knew it,” he guessed, seeing right through Dave’s façade. “It’s still too early for you to return to school. It’s too much too fast.”

****

Dave didn’t smile. He didn’t look much of anything but done in. There were bags under his eyes that his shades couldn’t hide. His too-long hair flopped over the top and into his eyes. 

****

Karkat had to restrict the urge to reach out and brush back that errant hair from Dave’s face. 

****

“Naw,” Dave said at last, shrugging. “That would prove Dirk right. Can’t have that, can we now?”

****

“Dave,” Karkat protested, sensing his stubbornness rise to the surface. 

****

“Let me be,” Dave asked, his voice quiet. “I don’t want to go back home today, not until school’s over. Let me make it through this one day on my own. Please.”

****

Karkat bit at his lip, torn between his desire to protect Dave from himself and the desire to help him achieve his impossible goal. “I doesn’t have to be on your own,” Karkat reminded him gently. He hadn’t touched Dave since he’d kissed him awake, not intentionally, not anything beyond a sudden steadying hand as Dave had faltered in his balance and threatened to fall. The pressure of Karkat’s hand on his shoulder had made Dave suck in his breath and struggle not to flinch away. It shattered Karkat, but maybe at the same time it was his own fault for assuming that things would be the same between them now that Dave was awake. 

****

But because Karkat was weak, he reached out and out his hand over Dave’s on the table. Dave stared at their hands but didn’t pull away. “You know that we are here to help you,” Karkat said, the rest of the dull roar of the crowded cafeteria drowned out as they occupied this moment between them. 

****

Dave dragged his gaze up from their hands to Karkat’s eyes. “Help me get out of here. Let’s go outside. I want to sit under the trees.”

****

Karkat nodded and leapt up. Dirk shot him a knowing glance that meant he’d been listening in to every word between them and was probably plotting how best to liberate Dave’s new wheelchair from the front office, but he kept quiet as Karkat shuffled over to Dave’s side of the table to help him to his feet. 

****

“I swear I’ll get the hang of this,” Dave muttered to himself as he fumbled his canes into place on his arms, then tried to untangle his legs enough to get them under him. This time when Karkat reached down to help, he didn’t pull away. Instead Dave leaned heavily on him, completely trusting Karkat to hold him upright while he got his feet together. It was only for a second but the relief it caused Karkat lasted until he and Dave had managed to cross the breadth of the tiled floor and head towards the double doors that led to the oak trees outside. 

****

It was cold but not freezing. The live oaks were the only green thing in eyesight, and circles of dead leaves lines the base of their craggy trunks from where the leaves overhead had blocked out the thin snow. They walked in silence, nothing but the crunch of Dave’s feet and canes in the snow.

****

They didn’t stop until they reached the same old tree that was the place where Karkat had first discovered Dave’s secret all those months ago. 

****

“This is where it happened, wasn’t it?” Dave asked quietly. “This is where you first found out.”

****

Karkat didn’t try to hide it. “Yeah.”

****

“I remember,” Dave said as Karkat’s heart leapt with painful hope. “I remember a lot of things. I was clinging so hard to try and look and act as human as possible around you, in the beginning when you didn’t know, but I took a gamble that day and let my form shiver. You saw.”

****

Karkat remembered the sight of tree bark through Dave’s shadowed torso, his body insubstantial. “I did.”

****

“You ran,” Dave said softly, and Karkat felt a flash of guilt. “I let you see the real me, and you turned tail and ran like a bat out of hell.”

****

“I did,” Karkat didn’t lie. He stepped closer. “But I came back.”

****

“You did,” Dave nodded. “You came right back the very next day, and from then on you were at my side.”

****

“What’s it like?” Karkat asked curiously. “Remembering?”

****

Dave leaned back against the tree. His breath fogged in the air. “It’s like I was dreaming for that missing year and a half,” he said. “I remember it all happening, but, it feels… fuzzy, like a dream.”

****

Karkat swallowed hard past the lump in his throat. 

****

“A good dream,” Dave clarified. “The kind worth remembering. But then I woke up.”

****

The moment stretched between them, poignant and ethereal. 

****

“And you were really there,” Dave said, his voice full of wonder. “I knew your name even. You were real, which meant everything else had to be too.”

****

“It’s a lot to take in,” Karkat offered. 

****

“Yeah,” Dave breathed out in a cloud. “Like, fucking magic? That’s real now too. Weird.”

****

“I know,” Karkat said helpfully. “I couldn’t believe that part at first either.”

****

“I guess we both woke up then,” Dave said, staring at him. “You woke me up.”

****

Karkat’s heart was pounding. “I did.”

****

Seemingly satisfied, Dave made to sit down under the tree. Karkat copied him and they sat in the dead leaves. Slowly, so slowly, Dave leaned into Karkat until they were pressed warmly together. In the distance, the nasal droning of the bell rang to signal class. They both ignored it. 

****

Dave worked his fingers in between Karkat’s own until they were holding hands. Dave held him tightly, squeezing like he would never let go. “Do you still love me?” He asked suddenly. 

****

“What?” Karkat asked, shocked into speechlessness. 

****

“You told me you loved me,” Dave reminded him. I know I remember that—it shines brighter than the rest of my memories, but now…” He trailed off, still looking at their linked hands. “I was just wondering if that was still true.”

****

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

****

Dave shrugged, but his lips were trembling. “You fell in love with just the shade of me, a fragment. And now I’m back but broken. I wasn’t sure if this new me was someone that you still wanted.”

****

“Oh, Dave,” Karkat pulled away, putting space between them that instantly filled with cold air. He shivered, wanting Dave at his side again. 

****

Dave reached up and with one smooth movement pulled his shades from his face. They hit the icy leaves with a crunch. His beautiful eyes were earnest and scared, waiting. 

****

“Yes, you idiot, I still love you,” Karkat huffed out, and like this he could watch the change come over Dave’s face as his words hit home. Dave softened, the ice in his eyes thawing into something warmer as he squeezed Karkat’s hand. “I was just giving you space to sort things out on your own. I didn’t want to pressure you or stress you out with my existence.”

****

“And I didn’t want to move too fast and scare you off for good,” Dave admitted, motioning to the space between them. “Especially now that I’m physically disabled with two legs that don’t know how to leg.”

****

“Like I’d care about that,” Karkat scoffed, moving closer. “Dave, I loved you when you were in a coma and couldn’t feel me. Did you really think a pair of arm crutches were going to scare me away?”

****

“Maybe?” Dave said. “I just felt so alone, you know? People can do strange things when they realize everything they’ve ever wanted is in grasp but a single endless step away.”

****

“Is that how you felt?” Karkat asked, concerned. 

****

Dave shrugged. “The doctors said I’d never walk again. It’s thanks to Jane that I can move around like this at all. And I couldn’t help but think that you deserved someone better.”

****

“No,” Karkat said, swift and decisive. “Again, Dave… I don’t care.”

****

“You don’t?” Dave asked, and this time he was playful. Teasing. 

****

“Not even a little,” Karkat promised, and he held up their linked hands, joining it with his free hand so that he clasped Dave’s hand between both of his. He raised Dave’s hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to Dave’s scarred knuckles. 

****

Dave sighed, exhaling as he closed the space between them. They fit against each other perfectly, chasing away the cold. Karkat looked over at Dave, twisting his head so that his lips were within easy reach and wordlessly Dave complied with a grin.

****

Dave kissed him deep and true. As far as kisses go nothing could ever come close to their first, but this was a truer first kiss, one that they both shared and that’s what made it so special. Dave’s lips were warm as they moved against his. All of Karkat felt warm. The cold couldn’t reach him here in Dave’s arms, and the perfect moment drug on for long enough that Karkat suspected that Dave was fucking with time. Or it might have just been him, reveling in how this was everything he’d ever wanted or dreamt of for himself. He’d found everything he was looking for right there in Dave’s arms, that thing he hadn’t found from bouncing around a dozen different schools until he’d hit the end of the dusty road in the middle of the Deep South and thought he’d missed his chance until a boy with a bruise had climbed onto the school bus and changed Karkat’s whole life for the better, and he’d tasted magic in his mouth before and knew how it felt sparking from his fingertips, but none of that compared to the feeling of Dave’s fingers tracing his cheek as they kissed. 

****

He broke away for just long enough to say, “Dave, I love you so much.”

****

Dave kissed him again.

****

“And I’m never going to stop loving you, no matter what,” Karkat promised, kissing back as the late bell rang but Karkat couldn’t be fucked to care about skipping class again, not when he could feel Dave smiling against his lips. 

****

And then the moment was over and Dave pulled away and left everything brighter by his passing. The cold sun shone down just a little softer, a little warmer, and Karkat looked up to the school to see Rose and Jade waiting with Dave’s wheelchair at the top of the hill, because no matter what, Dave would never be alone again and they had the rest of their lives to make that a promise. They’d earned this happily ever after, and now it was time to go and live it.

****

…

****

**Day ~~[Redacted]~~**

****

…  
…

****

**Day one**.

****

_The End_.

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHHHH i want to cry I'm so torn up about this but at the same time I'm so happy to have guided the story to its natural end. That's it folks! We did it! 
> 
> Throughout this story I explored a few themes of the Southern Gothic writing style to see how well it would fit a high school semi-soulmates romance AU, which is something the genre isn't supposed to do almost by definition, but I think I made it work out alright. It sure did help me create a bomb ass story. 
> 
> Until next time guys, thanks for reading - AcrylicMist, (TC)

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be fun


End file.
